


Collapsing Stars With Tunnel Vision

by astramaxima (shotgunsinlace)



Series: To Be Infinite [2]
Category: Sonic the Hedgehog (2020)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Character Development, Competent Agent Stone, Developing Relationship, Enemies to Friends, Friendship, M/M, Pining, Post Movie, Science, Slow Burn, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-05
Updated: 2020-05-11
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:40:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 43,930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23487703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shotgunsinlace/pseuds/astramaxima
Summary: Three years after being relieved from his post as Doctor Robotnik's personal assistant, Agent Stone is finally given the news of what truly happened in San Francisco. With the Doctor gone and the military in possession of his powerful and undoubtedly dangerous technology, it's up to Agent Stone — and the unlikeliest of reluctant allies — to get Robotnik back and stop the government from enacting its most villainous plan yet: utilizing the machines to exploit alien planets with the help of Sonic's stolen rings and, by extension, endangering Earth.
Relationships: Agent Stone & Sonic the Hedgehog, Agent Stone & Tom Wachowski, Dr. Eggman | Dr. Robotnik/Agent Stone, Maddie Wachowski & Tom Wachowski, Miles "Tails" Prower & Sonic the Hedgehog, Sonic the Hedgehog & Maddie Wachowski & Tom Wachowski
Series: To Be Infinite [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1674985
Comments: 145
Kudos: 184





	1. Ghost

**Author's Note:**

> Or, as I almost called this fic, _Sonic 2: Electric Bluegaloo._ My original intention was to write a straight up Stobotnik fic but then plot happened, a lot of it, and thus this baby came to be. I really went out of my way to keep it as faithful as possible to the source material (the movie, anyways) but took some obvious liberties when it came to the relationships between some of the characters.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _I never let it show_   
>  _But I feel like a missed call on a phone_   
> 
> 
>     — **Ghost** , Au/Ra

The smartspeaker clicks on with a tap of his finger. “Play Footloose by Kenny Loggins,” he says, thumping a socked foot against the kitchen island while waiting for the system to connect.

The drumbeat has him tapping a finger against the marble counter top, the base bobbing his head, the electric guitar has him do a spin in place before moving into a slide that places him in front of the pantry. He opens it and grabs two K-cups, marches to the beat towards the coffee machine and pops them in. Another spin and he grabs the spatula off the stainless steel utensil rack, holding it up and singing off key: “Eight hours, for _what _? Oh, tell me what I got!” He hums the rest as he gets on breakfast.__

__Eggs, bacon, strawberries, and spinach from the fridge: a cheesy shuffle._ _

__Bananas, grapes, an avocado, and oats from the fruit bowl and pantry: a little jump into a shimmy._ _

__“Now I gotta cut loose! Footloose! Your turn, Onyx!” he says, pointing at the corgi trying to reach for the bacon he left on the counter top. “That’s the spirit. Always reach for the unreachable, you fluffy potato.”_ _

__The music’s volume lowers without him telling it to, which can only mean one thing. He turns towards the kitchen entry to face a disheveled mess of a woman, her bun falling off her head as she fixes her bra strap. “It’s Saturday,” she says._ _

__“Sure is, babe.”_ _

__“It’s 7:00am on a Saturday.”_ _

__“Early worm gets the bird.”_ _

__“Mr. Agent, the only worm there’s to catch is yours once I chop it off for waking me up so early.”_ _

__Stone grins at her, waving the spatula around like a wand. “I’m making us breakfast.”_ _

__“Is the coffee supposed to smell like burning?”_ _

__“Oh, _shit_.” He runs over to the coffee machine, powering it down and pulling out the piping hot mugs with a wince. “Those were the last cups, too.”_ _

__“Isn’t it a great day to be off work?” she says, taking over the fruits and washing them in the sink before dropping them into the blender. She grabs the carton of almond milk from the fridge and bumps his hip with hers on her way back to her self-assigned station. “Awfully nice of Uncle Sam to finally give you a break. That last tour really was a doozy.”_ _

__“Not the worst.” Stone scrambles the eggs and pours them into a sizzling pan. He sprinkles salt, pepper, and paprika directly onto them. “But suspicious. Bennington was talking about permanently moving me to a desk to crunch statistics.”_ _

__“Why in the hell would he do that?”_ _

__Stone shrugs. “I’ve never been their favorite.”_ _

__“But you’re their best.”_ _

__“Sometimes, the best just doesn’t cut it.” He absently pulls down the sleeves of his black sweater, taking a moment to rub at his right wrist. “Maybe I’m losing my edge, Robin.”_ _

__Robin runs the blender in pulses before stopping with a loud sigh. “You won’t talk about it.”_ _

__“I don’t want to.”_ _

__“If not me, then to a professional.” She pushes away from the counter and approaches him with an extended hand, placing it over the bandages hidden beneath the fabric on his shoulder. “Had Suarez not been there to pull you out—”_ _

__“I know.” He shrugs her hand off him as he moves the eggs around to prevent them from sticking to the pan. “I messed up and I probably do deserve to be demoted to a desk job. At least that means I’ll be home more often.” Stone smiles at her, flipping the spatula in the air and sending bits of egg flying everywhere. “That means more delicious meals from yours truly.”_ _

__The pitter-patter of paws on hardwood floors tells him Onyx has declared himself the clean-up crew._ _

__“Not to mention burnt coffee,” Robin says with a snort, focusing back to the smoothie. “When, oh when, will I be able to taste the wondrous lattes you were once known for?”_ _

__Stone’s smile falters._ _

__He cooks the bacon and pops bagels into the toaster. He sets a bottle of orange juice on the island and grabs two glasses, two plates, two forks, and two knives. Once the food is ready, he serves it into two big platters and sets them between their assigned spots. He grabs himself a glass of water and forgoes his coffee mug altogether, taking his usual spot and eating wordlessly._ _

__Robin mirrors him, sitting across the way and taking a sip of her protein smoothie before grabbing a piece of bacon and holding it down for Onyx to eat. Stone can feel her eyes boring into him, the same questions she’s had for the past almost two years still swirling on the tip of her tongue._ _

__They eat in relative silence, with sunlight streaming in through the glass doors that lead out into the patio of her Colorado home. Outside, summer buzzes with the intensity of the Rockies, vibrantly green and glittering._ _

__“Joel.”_ _

__“Not today. Please.”_ _

__“Then when?”_ _

__“I’ll take Onyx out for a hike. Bet he’ll love that. Right, bud?” Stone wiggles his toes, using them to rub the top of the dog’s head. “Who’s a good boy?”_ _

__“You don’t even like him.”_ _

__“Yeah, I do,” he says, looking at her with a hurt expression. “He’s adorable. Look. Never asks for time off, cleans up after me… he’s the perfect assistant.”_ _

__“Whatever you say.”_ _

__They go back to eating. At least, Robin does. Stone continues to push his food around. He doesn’t grab the bagels out of the toaster when they pop up._ _

__It’s just a normal day. A perfectly average, normal day in paradise. He has his girlfriend, their dog, his job – more or less – and absolutely nothing to do other than recover from a particularly nasty field mission that’s left him pretty badly bruised._ _

__“You ignored direct orders to fall back,” Robin says, ignoring his request to not talk about it. “You’re lucky you even have a job after that stint.” She pinches the bridge of her nose and turns to face the doors, clearly upset with him. “Why, Joel? Whatever happened to ‘nobody follows orders as good as me, thus making me indispensable’?”_ _

__Stone stares down at his plate, nausea thrashing its way up his gullet. He doesn’t want to think about it. For the second time in his life he’s messed up, the ghost of his past finally catching up to him after years of keeping it buried in a titanium box. “I thought…” he begins, burying his face in his hands. “I thought he’d be there.”_ _

__“‘He’ who?”_ _

__Stone can barely remember the mission, what he was sent in for or who was with him, but he remembers standing in the middle of a long concrete hallway, the walls shaking and chipping. He remembers a distinct hum on his skin, a vibration that can only be emitted by impossibly advanced technology. Technology he spent four years working up close and personal with before he was left behind._ _

__He had heard the order despite the static coming from his earpiece, Bennington yelling at them to get out of the installation, but Stone ran straight into the fray with a desperation he hadn’t thought himself capable of feeling._ _

__“Hey,” Robin calls out to him, her eyes guilty. “You're safe here. I’m sorry.”_ _

__Stone forces out a laugh. “I’ll go into town and grab some more coffee. See if there’s any fresh honey, too.”_ _

__Robin nods her head. “You and Onyx deserve some bonding time. I’ll clean up before heading to the office.” Sliding off the stool, she takes her empty dishes to the sink before swinging by and grabbing his. She kisses his temple and gives his back a light rub before walking away again. “Enjoy your time off.”_ _

____

____________________

He doesn’t go into town. Instead, Stone hikes up the sandstone ridge with Onyx in tow. The little spud is surprisingly agile despite his stumpy legs, stopping every so often to sniff a knot of grass or dead log they come across. Below he can hear the bubble of the river as it rushes over polished rocks, and further out, the zip of cars down the highway.

The land Robin owns is impressive, and Stone has his doubts that she was able to afford such a luxury on the government’s dime as a receptionist, but he’s never pushed her for the truth. They both have their secrets, after all; buried pasts and painful memories not worth digging up again when they have found some semblance of normalcy amidst his chaotic life. He’s grateful for that, at least.

Onyx sits on a patch of grass, out of breath, and Stone joins him. He rolls up the sleeves of his hoodie and unzips it, the hike brushing off the last remnants of the house’s chilly interior. He idly plucks blades of grass.

“Am I the only one who thinks I got off easy?” Stone asks Onyx. The dog sneezes. “Thought so.” Any other person would have gotten court martialed for disobeying direct orders out on the field, but all he got was a slap on the wrist, paid leave, and the offer to work from home—however forced that last one is.

He’s not dumb. He knows the location of every bug in the house: from the microphone underneath the living room coffee table to the microscopic cameras sprinkled throughout the hallways. Stone is _essential_ despite his status change. Aside from Dr. Robotnik himself, only Stone knows the schematics and access codes to his machines. Although, if Stone knows the man at all – and he does – Robotnik would have changed everything the moment he relieved Stone from his post. It’s been three years since then, and he hasn’t a single doubt that the doctor has.

It had taken a long time for him to accept his fate, not fighting the system in hopes that they would eventually lose interest in him. On the opposite side of the coin, he hopes that the doctor has hijacked the surveillance to check up on him, as unlikely as that may be. Once Robotnik loses interest in a pet project, to the bottom of the bin it goes.

Speaking of interest and the doctor’s ability to tweak anything he wants regardless of the distance, Stone grabs his phone and unlocks it, pulling up his recent calls log and tapping on the contact that reads simply ‘DR.IR’. He holds it to his ear and hears it go immediately to an automated voicemail.

“Good morning, Doctor. Hope you’re doing well. This is your weekly reminder to get some sleep and eat something other than a granola bar.” Stone smiles down at his hand as it clenches and unclenches, the uncomfortable weight in his stomach shifting. “The White Hounds released a new album last Tuesday and there’s a couple good songs on there. Doesn’t sound the same from their old stuff, but I figured you ought to give it a listen when you get the chance.” He clears his throat, overcome, once again, by the thought that his messages aren’t being listened to at all. At this point he figures these are more for himself than for the doctor. “Yeah. Keep on with your bad self, doc. Maybe someday you’ll learn that not caring for people doesn’t necessarily mean people won’t care for you.” Stone ends the call and rubs the corner of his eyes. 

Onyx gets up and sits next to him, his tiny tongue hanging out his mouth before resting his head on Stone’s knee.

“Not sure who the bigger idiot is,” Stone tells him, adjusting the dog’s collar. “Should’ve paid attention to my colleagues and gone for foreign languages instead.” He notices Onyx’s ear twitching and Stone playfully tugs at them, but stops when he realizes that they don’t act like they normally do when they’re itchy. The dog sits upright, turning his head every which way as if trying to pinpoint something it’s hearing. “What is it, boy?”

Stone pauses when he catches the slightest hint of movement out of the corner of his eye.

“Time to go,” he says, getting up and brushing off any dirt that may be clinging to his jeans. Wrapping the leash tightly around his fist, Stone discreetly casts a look around but sees nothing worth noting. There’s only grass, boulders, and horses off in the distance.

Phone back in his pocket, he picks Onyx up and tucks him under his arm for the hike home. The dog doesn’t struggle, and he in fact looks ecstatic at the prospect of not having to walk all the way back.

When the sound of the river fades into the background, Stone sees it again: like a flash of lightning out in the distance, drowned out by storm clouds. But the sky is a ruthless blue with not a single hint of white dusted on it. Only the sun shines down on the green hill, nearly blinding at that morning hour. He turns towards the direction of the flash with squinted eyes, only to see it again on the opposite side of him.

Stone instinctively reaches for his back pocket before remembering that he is unarmed, and therefore exposed to whoever is stalking him. He tightens his grip on the dog in case he must make a run for it, but if lightning is what comes to mind, he has little hope of outrunning it.

Static makes his skin prickle and for a brief moment Stone is compelled to go and investigate, but the incline gives him ample view of his surroundings. Still, nothing. He can feel it more than he can see it.

Perhaps it’s just a healthy helping of paranoia.

Perhaps Robin is right, and he should see a professional. Things just haven’t been the same since he began throwing his all into perilous field work.

Taking deep, even breaths, he looks for a way to ground himself. “Been workin’ so hard, I’m punchin’ my card. Eight hours, for what? Oh, tell me what I got.” It’s the only song he can think of because it’s been looping in his head nonstop since breakfast. “I got this feeling that times are holding me down.” He quickens his step into a half walk-half jog, agilely sprinting across a tiny stream. “I’ll hit the ceiling or else I’ll – _something_ – this town.”

Stone abandons all pretenses when sweat pours down his back, heart ramming painfully against his chest when the house comes into view. He sets Onyx down once they’ve reached flatland and lets him off the leash. The dog is faster than he is as his little legs haul him towards the yard.

He barely skids to a halt at the front door, letting the dog in before locking it behind them.

Blinds shut and security cameras on, Stone keeps an eye out for any further indication of being followed. What he gets is a whole lot of nothing save for the occasional squirrel that darts around the yard and past the fence line in search of food. He feels like an idiot once he gives his brain a moment to calm down and think, rationalizing the blur of motion and the sudden spike of anxiety that may have been attributed to intense sunlight without wearing sunglasses.

“Get a hold of yourself, A—” The smartspeaker emits a high-pitched grinding sound that makes him jump, Onyx skittering away with a whine when it continues to increase in volume.

Stone grabs it, turns it every which way, and when there’s no way to turn it off, he dumps it in the trashcan and slams down the lid. It doesn’t stop, but it muffles the noise enough for him to think properly. Interference or feedback, but from what he can’t begin to imagine. He switches his phone onto airplane mode and waits, hands out on either side of him in case anyone comes at him from anywhere he can’t see… but nothing happens.

The noise dies out a few short seconds later, and the static charge making his hairs stand on end vanishes with it.

He’s left standing by the kitchen counter, confused. 

“Are you okay?” At this point there’s no telling if he’s asking himself or the dog. Onyx yips from somewhere in the living room. “Awesome. Good to know.”

Breathing under control, Stone fishes out the speaker and spares no time in taking it apart. There’s nothing in it that shouldn’t be, but he’s not kidding himself into thinking the government doesn’t use the default speaker settings to listen in on everyone at any given moment. He leaves the scattered pieces on the countertop and fills up his reusable water bottle, before stumbling into the living room and crashing into the couch.

Onyx doesn’t join him.

His head pounds mercilessly, the light dancing in his eyes a warning of the incoming migraine. A rare ailment that has become increasingly persistent since his last mission, perhaps due to a mistreated head injury on his behalf. Regardless, he sits as still as he possibly can and shuts his eyes.

He’s not crazy.

His mind is just trying to reach for outlandish explanations to average occurrences. _Earthquake! An EQL,_ Stone tries to reason. If his employers were out to get him, they would have done so quickly and efficiently. But if not weather phenomena or the Agency, there could be a slim possibility that just maybe, by some miracle – or act of pure evil genius – he’s being toyed with by none other than—

No. Of course not. He knows better than to indulge in wishful thinking.

Closed water bottle on his lap and running sneakers still on, that’s how Robin finds him once she gets back three hours later.

“Thinking of turning yourself into a vampire?” she calls out, and Stone hears the light thud of her suitcase being put down by the door. The clip of her heels heralds her arrival into the living room, where hardwood turns to plush carpet. “You, uh, got anyone to deliver that fateful bite? Because if not, I volunteer.” She kicks off her shoes and makes her way over to the couch, undoing her tie and letting it hang around her neck. Robin pauses once she’s close enough to get a look at him, and immediately presses the back of her hand to his forehead. “Did you just get back?”

Stone shakes his head. “It was hot out.”

“So… you just crashed on the couch and haven’t moved since, what, noon?” Deeming him fever free, she cups her hand against his cheek and gives the side of his head a kiss. “Talk to me, Joel.”

“I’m fine.”

“You look as far from fine as fine can be. Run in with a ghost? Heard the hills around here can get up to some spooky stuff if the weather’s right.”

He turns to her then, his hackles suddenly rising before he can prevent himself from jumping to conclusions. She’s looking at him with a sly smirk that has nothing to do with a thinly veiled coverup and more to do with her hand now resting on his knee, fingers digging into the soft skin behind it.

“Work sucked today,” she continues. “I got stuck training the new hire. It’s not that hard to log appointments into the terminal, especially for high ranking officials, but the guy wouldn’t get it. Idiot couldn’t even remember his badge number and instead all he kept yapping about was how great his honeymoon in the Maldives was last year.” Robin lets her hair down and shakes it out with her free hand, combing it to rest over a shoulder. “Speaking of honeymoons.”

“I think I’m gonna turn in,” Stone says, putting his hand over the one on his knee and gently pushing it away. “Turn in to do some work. Is what I mean. Since it’s still early.” His attempt at being casual fails.

“It’s almost eight, babe. Can’t it wait until tomorrow?”

Stone does a double take, furrowing his eyebrows at her. “It’s eight… in the evening,” he says, turning towards the large windows that face the garden. He hurries over to them, pushing the blinds aside to see that yes, while the sky isn’t completely dark, it is definitely an evening hour up in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains.

Discomfort fades away into calmness, a steady feeling of acceptance that it’s been an off day and there’s nothing he can do to change the events that have transpired. Chased by lightning, ungodly loud noises, and time loss are by no means the strangest of things he’s ever experienced throughout his career. It is the strangest he’s experienced by himself, though.

“Bed sounds good,” he says, then pointedly adds: “to sleep. Maybe I need to get some sleep.”

Robin cocks an eyebrow and shakes her head in bewilderment. “I can take a hint.”

“Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize. I’ve got a long night ahead of me and I was hoping we could… you know… before I got to it, but if you’re not feeling it—”

“I’m not,” Stone says, his back to her as he finally gets around to taking off his sneakers. He walks out of the living room and puts them by her suitcase beside the door. “Ask me tomorrow morning.” Picking up the suitcase, he’s surprised by how light it feels in his grip. 

There are scuff marks on the Italian leather, he realizes as he puts it down on the island counter, and the engraving on the gold clasp reads A.A.S.

His initials. 

Making sure she can’t see him from the living room, he flips the suitcase over and runs his fingers across the underside, looking for the subtle pattern he knows is etched onto the leather. A pattern so discreet it’s nearly invisible to the naked eye, unless one knows what they’re looking for. His index finger brushes over it: a stylized R, indicating who had it made.

Stone curses softly, unsure of what to do. The R’s style tells him the suitcase is old, maybe going on five years as Robotnik likes to keep his signature fresh, and the initials on the clasp clearly indicate it’s meant for him and no one else.

A sickening jolt of icy dread seizes in his stomach. _Is she the doctor’s latest assistant?_

He bites his tongue, telling himself that she doesn’t have what it takes to withstand more than a day working under Robotnik. She can’t cook, let alone make a proper cup of coffee, therefore the doctor wouldn’t even care to keep her around.

Right?

No. Of course not. He’s being an idiot, _an imbecile, a creature who can’t rely on higher functions because he is, and has been, emotionally compromised for years. A lowly human, distracted by meager desires that would never pose a problem for the doctor’s perfect machines._

“Joel?” Stone starts. “No need to hate on my latest accessory,” Robin says with a laugh, arms over her chest. “You like it?”

He looks back at the suitcase, taking a slow step away from it. “Pretty sleek design.”

“You wouldn’t believe how much it cost me.” Resting her hip against the counter, she smacks the leather twice before spinning it on its side. “Fifteen bucks. Goodwill down on Main Street. I’m telling you, it’s totally worth swinging by there from time to time.”

“Now that I have all this time on my hands,” Stone says, scratching at his beard. “Dibs on the shower.”

“Whatever, you gremlin.”

“Your gremlin, though. Right?”

Robin snorts and swats him away when he tries to give her a kiss. “You reek of dog and sweat. Get away from me.”

Stone sticks his tongue out at her and walks down the hallway to the master bedroom, the smile falling off his face the moment she can no longer see him.

She’s had the suitcase since they started dating last year, having absently familiarized himself with the gold clasp from a distance since the very beginning. The sunlight would often gleam off it and she would occasionally polish it on nights when her work week was done, but Stone would always focus on her hands rather than the suitcase itself all those times, being as desperate as he’s been for anything to make him move on.

Fortunately, no amount of desperation is enough to completely overshadow his ability to reason.

He knows, for a fact, that the Goodwill down on Main Street, opened just three weeks ago.


	2. Left to Run

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Somewhere here in the atmosphere_   
>  _I can't escape from this reality_   
> 
> 
>     — **Nowhere to Run** , Madeleine Wood

_“There will come a day, Agent Stone, when your blatant ignorance of quantum mechanics will come in handy. Today is not that day,” Robotnik says, holding out his arms as if to beckon his drones into his bosom. “Until then, may I suggest picking up a hobby? Like, say,_ not burning my coffee. _”_

_Stone stands in the middle of an airfield, hands clasped in front of him as he watches the doctor pace to-and-fro. They’re alone save for the machines trained on him, weaponized and taking aim. One laser momentarily passes in front of his line of sight to settle on the middle of his forehead._

_“What have you got to say for yourself?”_

_Stone opens his mouth, but no words come out. It’s like the doctor has taken his vocal cords in order to keep him from talking back, keeping him meek and docile. No opportunity to get himself in trouble with anyone or anything other than Robotnik if he can’t speak. But the doctor would never do that. He gets his kicks from Stone willingly choosing not to engage or engaging precisely when he needs to._

_Robotnik hovers over Stone, pointing in the direction of an abandoned hangar off in the distance. The decrepit building shimmers and warps, as if trying to slip away unnoticed._

_“What am I looking at?” Stone asks, dropping the demanded formality. He steps away from the doctor and towards the hanger in hopes of getting a better view, but the entire world around him shifts and folds in on itself like a mirage that’s been disturbed. “Doctor?” He gets no reply and begins to walk, then run, towards the place that holds all the answers._

_The ground beneath him crumbles into a pixelated sea and Stone falls into an endless abyss, the pressure crushing his chest as hopelessness sets in, the feeling of swimming in a void where no space is a direction rendering him useless as grief rips through his chest._

_“What is it about me that makes you tick?”_

_All Stone does is fall through the nothing, without aim and without control. Freefalling—_

A loud crash jolts him awake, heart beating frantically before he can make sense of his conscious state. Dream and reality mixes into a muddy concoction, but it soon clears when Robin grabs his arm.

“What was—”

Stone shushes her, pushing her back down onto the mattress while kicking the covers off himself. “Stay low,” he tells her, getting off the bed and hurrying to the bedroom door as silent as a mouse. He signals her to stay where she is before stepping out and leaving the door open just a crack.

The house is dark, his smartwatch reading 4:15am.

He moves silently on socked feet, and it’s the chill of his sweaty shirt against his skin that makes him stop his investigation. Crouching down just outside of the kitchen, he feels the cold pre-dawn breeze coming in through what he assumes is a shattered window. The crash hadn’t sounded like glass, but from his spot on the floor he can see that the front door is still shut.

Static tingles against his skin.

Stone remains perfectly still and listens—but he sees it before he hears it: a dull blue glow coming from the living room. There’s a brief sound of movement and a shush. 

“I’m telling you, if no one’s coming by now, then we’re in the clear!”

“Will you keep it down?!”

“Listen, Donut Lord. If we’re gonna catch ourselves a secret agent, then we gotta think like one. I say we split up.”

“I say you stop talking before you blow the whole secret part.”

Stone sneaks into the kitchen and makes for the cabinet underneath the island counter where he fumbles blindly with the latch hidden inside. He does quick work of grabbing the sidearm he keeps there for emergencies and removes the safety, getting to his feet and holding it in front of him as he quietly moves around in the now slightly brighter darkness.

“—even my idea. Surveillance never sleeps.”

“Lights on,” Stone says, making everyone shut up. 

When the lights don’t turn on, belatedly remembering how he never put the speaker back together again, Stone smacks the switch with his elbow, gun still aimed in the general direction of the intruders.

The agent’s brain slows in order to properly assess what it is that he is seeing, and so he catalogs it with the same objective calm he would analyze any other situation.

Unarmed white male, late thirties, just shy of six feet. Blue jeans, black shirt under red and green flannel, work boots. That’s normal enough, and Stone would have recognized him immediately were it not for the thing standing next to him.

A three-foot-tall blue humanoid in red sneakers.

“Who the—how— _what in the hell_ ”, he cycles through a dozen thoughts a second, lowering his gun before raising it, then lowering it again as he takes a step back before steeling himself.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, easy there,” the man says, hands up to somehow demonstrate how harmless he is, as if he doesn’t have a creature—an alien creature— _the blue alien creature him and Robotnik so avidly chased across the American west_ —right next to him, also with its hands in the air. “Put the gun down and we’ll explain everything.”

Stone cocks the gun.

“Hey! Hey, it’s okay, we’re okay. See?” The man does a slow turn, hands above his head at all times. “We just want to have a quick chat and we’ll be out of your hair before you can even say ‘multi-versal crisis’.”

Stone readies his trigger finger as anger surges far more powerful than any confusion he feels right now. It all makes sense, from the lightning-like movement to the static feeling that refuses to go away. “How long have you been stalking me?”

“Well, I wouldn’t exactly call it _stalking_.”

“Sonic, we agreed you’d let me do the talking,” the man, _Tom, Tom Wachowski_ , Stone suddenly recalls, warns the creature.

“Your talking isn’t getting us anywhere.” The creature, Sonic, turns to Stone. “We need your help.”

Before anything else can be said, the sound of a scream coming from behind Stone startles everyone in the room.

The agent whips around, immediately lowering his weapon at the sight of Robin standing there, wrapped in her bathrobe and both hands clasped over her mouth. Her eyes are wide enough to pop out of their sockets, and the sheer look of horror spurs Stone into action. Gun at his side, he reaches for her shoulder with his available hand, only to find himself at the end of a semi-automatic revolver.

“I _knew_ it,” Robin hisses through gritted teeth. “Walters was right.”

Stone shakes his head, holding up his hands. Instinct wants to ask her what she’s talking about, because he clearly isn’t in league with anyone in this room, but his proven suspicion is enough for the time being. Right now, he needs to diffuse the situation before it escalates any further.

“Ro,” he tries, putting his firearm by his feet. She kicks it away. “I’d explain what’s going on, but the truth is I don’t even know.”

“I thought you said he lived alone,” Tom tells Sonic, inserting himself between him and the armed woman.

“Tails said he did.”

“It _talks_ ,” Robin says, shifting her aim from Stone to Sonic.

“Constantly,” Tom says.

“Robin,” Stone tries to get her attention, inching towards her again. “I don’t know what it is you’re thinking—”

“I’m thinking that you’ve taken me for a fool, Agent Stone,” she says, “but joke’s on you. The plan was to figure out whether or not you were still in contact with that madman, but this? Oh, this is so much better. Just you wait until they get a load of this.”

“Would you just listen to me?”

“No, Joel. I won’t listen. I’m sick and tired of listening to your silent brooding in the corner.” She cocks the gun, but this time aims it at Tom. “Either of you start talking before I start shooting. Luckily, we don’t need you alive.”

“Man, who farted in this lady’s closet?”

“Now’s not the time, kid.”

Robin shifts to close in on Tom, but Stone is just the slightest bit faster.

He grabs her wrist and twists her arm around her back, but she moves along with him, snatching up the weapon with the free hand when the one holding it is forced to let go. Robin uses Stone’s grip against him, grabbing his forearm instead and stepping around him, kicking out his knees and getting him in a chokehold. She yanks back his arm, tightening around his neck.

Realistically, he can fling her to the ground and disarm with a well-aimed lean, but the nagging voice at the back of his head telling him that he’s using his training to fight his _girlfriend_ makes him hesitate. This whole domestic setup may have just been a façade to keep him under the watchful eye of the government, but to him it had been _real_.

His emotions truly will be the death of him.

“Where is he, Stone?” Robin says. “You got the alien, now where’s the doctor?”

“I don’t know.” A heavy grip to the head makes him grunt. “I don’t know!”

“You know that’s not the answer we want to hear, darling. Either you give us Robotnik or we’ll pull those codes out of you one toenail at a time.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Robin sighs, tightening her hold further until he’s forced to sit back in order to breathe. “This whole spineless errand boy persona might stroke something for that lunatic, but it ain’t fooling me. Start talking or the cowboy and his pet alien are going to be in for a surprise!”

With an impassive sigh, Stone grabs hold of her shoulder and flips her onto her back.

He’s quick to shove a knee against her trachea, cutting off her airflow, but she’s far more agile than he gave her credit for. She flings a leg up, kicking the back of his head hard enough to take him by surprise and throw him off.

A shot goes off and Stone flinches, the ringing in his ears making it all the harder to concentrate. He lunges for her arm holding the weapon and the scuffle devolves from CQB to a floor-wide scramble, one involving nails and elbows and knees to unfortunate places.

It takes Stone all of two seconds to realize Robin’s gun is gone, nowhere to be seen in their immediate vicinity, and takes advantage of her moment of confusion to reach for his own. He acts without much thought, running purely on adrenaline and the detached mentality of an agent of the highest caliber in a life or death situation. Stone aims, cocks back the hammer, and pulls the trigger—only to hear the hollow click of an empty chamber.

Robin laughs. “Safety first, sweetheart. Did you really think I was going to let you keep bullets in your gun in our home?”

Stone blinks down at her and smiles. “You’re absolutely right.” He’s thrown off her once more, but before she can retaliate in any way, a blurry blue ball inundates Stone’s field of vision.

He scrambles back as she watches her hit the floor, Sonic stumbling over his own feet and shaking off the apparent dizziness the stunt caused him. “You’d think I’d be used to that by now, huh?”

Hands grab Stone by the shirt and the agent swings his fist, but Wachowski dodges out of the way in time. “We have to go, Agent. Right now, before half the armed forces come raining fire down on this place.”

Stone stumbles onto his feet, out of breath and halfway out of his mind as he nods his head, suddenly overcome with the feeling to _run_. He’s high strung, unarmed, and being aided by the people that are meant to be his sworn enemies, but whatever lies ahead is world’s better than the nightmare the past couple of months have suddenly become.

“Wait,” he says, pushing Wachowski away and whistling down the hallway. “Onyx!” The corgi darts towards him, waddling as it jumps up at his leg. Stone scoops him up. “I can’t leave him.”

“Great, another dog,” Sonic says, tugging at the hem of Wachowski’s shirt. “Where am I supposed to sit now?”

“We’ll figure it out as we go,” Wachowski says, urging Stone to follow him outside.

They hurry when the sound of helicopters becomes audible, running down the hill towards the black Ford parked alongside the highway.

Dog securely in the backseat with Sonic, Stone gets in the passenger’s seat and buckles up.

“Glad to see you guys all made it back.”

Stone whips around, mouth agape as he stares at yet another non-human creature. “There’s two of them?”

“I know what you mean by that but, technically speaking, Sonic is a hedgehog and I’m a fox. The name’s Tails! It’s nice to meet you, Agent.”

Stone looks from Tails, to Sonic, to Onyx, who is currently sniffing at their shoes, then to Wachowski, who shrugs. “You get used to it after a while.”

Wachowski turns on the ignition and hits the road with the headlights off, swerving when searchlights beam down near enough to be a problem. It isn’t long until black SUVs are on their tail despite sticking to the backroads, more of them popping up every so often.

Stone grabs his phone and throws it out the window along with his other smart devices, in hopes of buying them more time. Which makes Stone wonder, “Is anybody going to tell me what’s going on?”

“I’d fill you in but I’m trying to drive here,” Wachowski says, taking a sharp turn and sending every loose article in the truck rolling with it. “You two?”

“You gotta cut him some slack,” Sonic says, popping up between the two front seats, “he’s not really good at multitasking.”

Tails joins him, nudging Sonic out of the way. “We need your help,” he says, timidly scratching at his cheek before pulling out some sort of contraption resembling a satellite phone. “It’s about Dr. Eggman.”


	3. All Gray Matters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _We were designed to send mixed signals,_   
>  _One image made up of different pixels_   
> 
> 
>     — **Mind** , Sleeping at Last

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Brownie points to whoever names the show Sonic and Tails are watching.

They reached the interstate without further incident courtesy of Wachowski’s topnotch driving ability, which included plenty of off-roading down dangerous cliffsides, the crossing of small rivers, and merging off Highway 36 and into I-25 northbound.

The convoy falls back once they cross into Wyoming, and Stone wishes they wouldn’t have given up that easily. The absence only means that whoever is following them—the government, military, or their unholy union—is doubling down on its efforts behind the curtain, getting ready to spring a trap the moment they let their guard down.

However, first things first. “Eggman?”

“He means Robotnik,” Wachowski says.

“Yeah, that much I inferred.” Stone turns to face Tails and debates asking why he’s referring to the doctor as such, but a brief montage of Robotnik’s egg references plays out in the back of his mind. Along with the fact that his robots are egg-shaped, for some undisclosed reason. He wonders if it's intentional or some sort of subconscious psychological response to _something_. “What do you need my help with?”

“You see, it’s all a little convoluted,” Tails says, making a ball gesture with his hands. “We may potentially need to bring him back to stop the government from exploiting the natural resources from other planets using Sonic’s rings that may potentially trigger catastrophic atmospheric and geological instability across Earth thus creating a PA event.”

“PA stands for Planet Annihilation,” Sonic chimes in, “Googled it myself.”

Stone stares at them, mouth agape. “Sorry, _what?_ ” He straightens out in his seat, billboards and the occasional headlights that zoom by going out of focus. One question turns to five, which turns to ten and a headache. All he can do is nod. “The government is… Planets. As in more than one. Need—wait. Robotnik is contracted by the government,” he says.

Wachowski snorts. “Not currently.”

“And you would know this.”

“I don’t think contracts are valid when half the signing party is either off planet or, you know.”

Gripping the worn fabric of his sweatpants, Stone tries to process the image they’re trying to create, but even his wildest imagination comes up short. Even with the two sitting in the backseat. “Or, what, exactly?”

There’s a moment of silence in the truck where everyone looks to Stone with expressions of disbelief and, in Wachowski’s case, sympathy. It rattles Stone and he braces himself for what he’s about to hear.

“You don’t know,” Wachowski says. “We kind of assumed you did, being his shadow and all.”

“What happened?” Stone presses, briefly glancing at him.

“In our defense,” Sonic says, “he tried to kill us.” Wachowski makes an agreeing sound. “Long story short, his stupid ship was able to keep up with me and _nothing_ can ever keep up with me that is a proven fact, I am literally the fastest thing in the whole multiverse. Anyways, after a bunch of cool stunts by yours truly we all ended up in Green Hills with one of my rings and then Eggman tried to kill me – again – so I totally whooped his ship and Donut Lord helped open up a portal to the Mushroom Planet and voila! One scrambled egg, packed and marked for delivery. To be honest, the portal closed pretty instantly so none of us know if he was able to land in one piece or if… you know… kaput.” Sonic nods enthusiastically before frowning at Wachowski’s glare. “At least we know there’s breathable air?”

Stone sinks into the seat, the back of his head thudding against the headrest as he squeezes his eyes shut and bites the inside of his bottom lip. A surreal mixture of anger and anguish simmers dangerously close to the surface, festering toxically, before he’s able to put a proper lid on it.

Sonic is still talking, going on and on about things Stone doesn’t listen to for the sake of what remains of his sanity.

“Must be a lot to take in,” Wachowski says, but Stone interrupts him.

“You broke into my house to kidnap me so that I can help you bring back someone who may or may not be dead,” he says, and he doesn’t state it as a question.

“Hey, we didn’t kidnap you. You came willingly.”

“Mr. Wachowski, you of all people know how relentless the government is when it comes to a manhunt. We’re not dead yet but we will be within the day.”

“That’s why we need Eggm—Dr. Robotnik. And, please, just Tom.” Wachowski, _Tom_ , reaches behind the driver’s seat and grabs a sealed water bottle, tossing it to Stone. “Joel, right?”

“No,” the agent says, taking the bottle and doing nothing with it. “It’s an alias.”

“What should we call you?”

“Stone’s just fine.”

Tails clears his throat, cutting through the awkward tenseness. “We need to know we can trust you.”

Stone almost demands Tom to pull over, needing to be out of the truck and as far away from everyone and everything as humanly possible. The small space crushes in on him as he struggles to even out his breathing and ease his heartbeat, his fists clenching and unclenching over his thighs. But he knows it would be irresponsible to stop now.

He doesn’t know what to offer on behalf of trust. For years he was an evil genius’ loyal henchman, and his loyalty still stands regardless of Robotnik’s current status. Before that, he silenced more people than he could care to keep track of. He’s as dangerous as a human can possibly be, going as far as having just pulled a firearm on his live-in girlfriend less than an hour ago. It may have been in self-defense, but he didn’t even hesitate.

“I will do whatever it takes to get him back,” is all Stone can genuinely offer.

_______________

They drive up to a motel at nine in the morning and everyone but Stone settles in for a short nap, with Sonic and Tails sharing a bed while Tom sprawls sloppily on his own.

He showers with water hot enough to scald, standing under the spray and begging the dull burn to wake him up from this sick hallucination he’s crash-landed into. He’s uncertain whether he prefers not knowing what happened to the doctor over being privy to the cruel truth. For three years he left messages, dreamed of seeing the red detailing inside that stylish black coat once more as Robotnik crowds him against a wall for nefarious reasons. Stone almost prefers believing the doctor hates him to the point of writing the agent off as dead, rather than having been right.

Their last encounter replays every so often, with Stone clawing at ways he could have done things differently. He knew Robotnik would not survive the ordeal, although, apparently, it was not the flyer prototype that killed him. _He may not be dead,_ he reminds himself. Odds of survival on an alien planet with no supplies? Slim, but Robotnik is tough to kill. Stone has to believe that.

Shutting off the water and letting himself air dry—all of the towels AWOL—he inspects the damage in the mirror. All that remains are a smattering of bruises at the cusp of fading away, scars where stitches were just a month ago still fresh but at no risk. There’s hardly any physical evidence to attest for the botched mission, but the aches and pains remain like ghosts haunting the darker corners of a room. Stone still finds himself fighting with the headaches and the mild bouts of disorientation every so often, but he’s become adept at managing it enough to not hinder his daily routines.

Having no choice but to put on the same clothing he has been wearing for the past twelve hours, Stone silently slips out of the bathroom and outside of the room for some fresh air.

The motel is located off a busy intersection some twenty miles from a national park, and it’s as risky a gamble. Tom dropped off the truck a few blocks away, apparently a rental, and is scheduled to pick up a sedan later that day. They’re as cloaked as they can possibly be, but Stone pinpoints at least six devices in his immediate vicinity capable of picking up and reporting their trail. He gives it until sundown, considering his employers don’t like making a scene.

Stone wanders around the lot, dropping by the nearby convenience store attached to a gas station and mentally berates himself for forgetting his wallet on his way out of the house. His reliance on his smartwatch has made him complacent.

_There you go again, blaming something other than yourself._

Ever since allowing instinct eclipse rationality that day, Stone has sensed the mental shift he cannot correct regardless how hard he tries. He has always been an emotional person, someone perfectly capable of acknowledging and acting in kind when it came to feelings, like an average functioning adult. His superpower, so to speak, lies in his ability to keep said emotions neatly folded and safely stored on the impeccably labeled shelves of his mind. He is in perfect control whenever he wishes to inspect them, experience them, before putting them away for a later date. Sure, there are some shelves he favors visiting, and then there are shelves covered in spiderwebs, but he knows their contents and jealously guards them.

Since coming into his service, Robotnik fiddled with the lock to that room like a man determined to solve the world’s most complicated puzzle, and Stone had just stood by and let him, amused by the doctor’s efforts. He had smiled and shook his head when the door was shoved open, then continued to smile mirthlessly when – that day in the lab, when Stone was officially relieved from his post – Robotnik began trashing the place as if he owned it. And maybe he did. Maybe he still does.

He trashed it and left, and Stone no longer had the willpower to clean up after the doctor’s messes.

It’s harder now, to remain stoic and impassive towards the fastballs aimed at his skull. He tries, still.

He wishes the motel offered continental breakfast.

Stone returns to the rundown row of rooms and spends the rest of the morning leaning over the railing, watching people walk by. He makes a mental note to take Onyx out for a stretch before they hit the road again.

The door behind him opens and out walks Tom, letting it accidentally slam behind him and wincing once it does. “Good morning, despite having missed morning by a whole hour.”

Stone greets him with a nod. “Feeling rested?”

“More than I was when I crashed your place. Sorry about that, by the way. I went from trying to save a life to trying to save the world. Wild how blurry it all gets on that type of scale.”

“There’s a lot of grey area,” Stone agrees. “You could have just knocked.”

“Now what would’ve been the fun in that, huh?” Tom joins him on the railing, his flannel shirt wrinkled and smelling faintly of cheap detergent. “You can go ahead and catch some shuteye if you want. Take the spare bed while I keep a lookout.”

“I’ll pass.”

“It’s not the Hilton, but it’s a bed. I need you to stay sharp, Agent. We’re still about half a day’s drive from Green Hills.”

Stone shakes his head and scoffs, wrapping one of his hoodie’s drawstrings around a finger. “You’re a pretty lousy cop.”

“Excuse me?”

“Never reveal the final destination.” Stone points at the security camera and nonchalantly waves at it. “No audio capability but they have some of the best speechreaders at Headquarters. You just gave them everything they needed.”

Tom’s eyes widen but to his credit he doesn't turn around to check if Stone is telling the truth. “Awfully forthcoming of you, 007.”

Stone shrugs. “A simple thank you would suffice, Sheriff Woody.”

Tom straightens up with an amused huff. “I’m gonna grab us something to eat. You want anything?”

“Dog food.” Stone gestures towards the room door. “For the dog.”

“Any specific brand?”

“Not anymore. Get him a chili dog and he’ll eat it.”

“Alright, that’s three chili dogs on the list. Unless you…”

“No, no chili dogs,” Stone says, putting up a hand in mild disgust. “I’m not hungry.”

“Right. Okay.” Tom walks backwards a couple of steps before turning around and vanishing around the corner.

The sound of someone knocking on the window draws Stone’s attention towards their room, where Sonic peeks out between the curtains and waves at him before Tails yanks him away, closing them once they are safely out of sight.

_Such odd little creatures._

He had never taken the opportunity to think about Sonic at the height of their chase, when Robotnik’s lunacy had reached unbearable proportions and had enveloped Stone in a way that nothing outside of the there and now mattered. While the doctor toiled away at his computers, crunching numbers and fine tuning his machines, Stone ran twice as many errands and made twice as many phone calls all the while maintaining a steady stream of artisanal coffee made by his own hands. Dare he say, he had been just as involved as the doctor was, constantly on his toes and holding his breath whenever they got close to Robotnik’s goal.

All that time, and never once did they stop and consider that their prize was far more sentient than they thought. Maybe Robotnik knew, since the doctor had interacted with Sonic multiple times, and he likely just did not care, but Stone had no idea.

He has done a great many things throughout his career, a lot of which he isn’t proud of from a purely moral standpoint, but there are some lines even his superiors have respected by sending someone else in to finish the job. Stone has never harmed a child, and that’s precisely what he sees when he looks at Sonic.

He wonders what it would have taken to persuade Robotnik to take a different approach, but then he snorts at the mere idea of it. There’s no changing the doctor, no making him see things from a different perspective once he’s picked out his ideal outcome. _Nobody’s perfect,_ he thinks. That vast intellect that could solve all the world’s problems must balance itself out somehow.

Tom returns shortly after with two paper bags worth of stuff. 

They head inside the room and the chore of feeding Onyx is wrestled from Stone by Tails, who sniffs the can of dog food, gags, pinches his nose, then proceeds to hold it up for Onyx to eat. Sonic eats two chili dogs at once and throws an oily bag of fries at Tails, he ducks out of its way at the nick of time.

An awful static noise suddenly erupts from the television set and Stone freezes mid step, before realizing it’s just some piece of equipment being used by two guys locked in a seemingly haunted clown-themed motel.

“Neither of you better complain about nightmares,” Tom warns, taking the last unopened bag and gesturing for Stone to follow him back out.

“We’ll be fine,” Sonic says, waving Tom off. “Everyone knows the show’s staged. Ghosts only hang out in real old places.”

“Maddie’s gonna kill me,” Tom says, closing the door and leaning against it with an over-the-top sigh. “Teenagers. Give ‘em a little bit of freedom and suddenly it’s complete anarchy.” He puts the bag down and extracts a bottle of vitamin water and a soda. “I know you said you didn’t want anything, but you looked like the type.”

Tom holds out the vitamin water, and Stone leans over and takes the soda.

Tom laughs. “And here I took you for being Mr. Serious Business.”

“When you live in Colorado for two years, you either drink or hunt wildlife. Only had time for one.”

“I take it back. I can’t pinpoint what type of guy you are to save my life, and I’m usually pretty good at reading people.”

“It’s my job to not be read,” Stone says, cracking open the can. “Not all of us are lucky enough to be the same person both on and off the clock.”

“Right. Secret Service? CIA? Men in Black?”

“I don’t believe you get to ask that question, Tom Wachowski.”

“Just trying to get to know each other here. Go ahead, ask me anything. I’m an open book.”

“I know everything about you,” Stone says, impassively. “Including your social security number and who you dated during your freshman year of high school.”

Nodding incredulously, Tom opens the vitamin water and takes a large swig, wiping his mouth off with the back of his hand. “That’s, uh, that’s heavy.” He clears his throat. “You guys really use cell phones to spy on people? ‘Cause I’m telling you, if there’s some sort of setting to disable that I’d really appreciate you teaching me the ropes.”

“How do I play into this plan of yours?” Stone says, growing tired of the forced interaction with the man responsible for destroying what little stability he had left in life. “You obviously have a friendlier equivalent to Dr. Robotnik on your team. What else do you need?”

Tom pinches the bridge of his nose. “I don’t really know. I mean, I get the general gist of it, but Tails wasn’t joking when he said that plan is convoluted. Something about having all of our resources in one place in case something goes wrong.”

Stone takes a sip from his soda and immediately grimaces at the sickeningly sweet taste. “I’m the backup plan, assuming you would rather not bring the doctor back if you don’t have to.”

“Assuming there’s no one to bring back,” Tom amends, sobering up and fixing Stone with a stern look. “I take it you’re a smart man, Agent Stone. You’ve worked with him for a very long time, and no one else knows just how dangerous he is quite like you do.”

“I’m afraid that’s common knowledge,” Stone says. 

“And that’s exactly why. We’re trying to save worlds here, not destroy them. Not just Sonic and Tails’, but ours, too. Governments are out there, banking off your boss’ tech and using it however they please.”

Stone smiles pleasantly at him, old habits manifesting in strange ways as he picks up on the lack of critical information. He knows, for a fact, that it is impossible for anyone other than Robotnik, and potentially himself, to man the doctor’s machines.

“Sounds to me like that’s just above your paygrade.” Stone pauses, taken aback by the mildly mocking timbre of his own voice.

Tom clinks their drinks together and smiles humorlessly, returning to his spot against the chipped railing. “Watch yourself there, Stone. You’re starting to sound just like him.”


	4. Trouble on the Way

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Look's like we're in for nasty weather_   
>  _One eye is taken for an eye_   
> 
> 
>     — **Bad Moon Rising,** Creedence Clearwater Revival

Two hours off the Interstate, past rolling hills littered with abandoned silos and decaying farmhouses, nestled inside a ring of mountains, rests Green Hills, Montana. Still every bit a backwater town as Stone remembers it to be, with its sleepy population of six hundred.

The dashboard says it’s barely seven in the morning when Tom pulls up to his driveway enshrouded in pine trees, with knocked over trash cans and a wooden mailbox with the number 55 painted on it.

It’s a quaint little house, tucked far enough among trees to provide cool shade in the sweltering summer. The wooden railing on the porch holds countless flowerpots in various shapes and sizes, with bright bursts of colors standing out against the deep green paint. A wind chime hangs over the door frame.

He hates it. Stone doesn’t recall seeing any of this the first and only time he unceremoniously dropped by, as preoccupied as he had been.

The front door swings open as they all pile out of the car. First comes a golden retriever, which Onyx enthusiastically greets with a wagging stub of a tail and tongue hanging out the side of his snout. Second is a woman Stone has never seen before, tall and dark skinned and clad in a tastefully colored yoga outfit.

She makes a beeline for Tom but is intercepted by Sonic, who stands in front of her with eyes big enough to rival Onyx’s at breakfast. “Good morning,” she says with a laugh, patting his head as Tom comes in for a half hug. “How’d it go?”

“Oh, it went great,” Sonic says, darting to stand by Stone and holding out his hands like presenting a trophy. “We even brought back some extra baggage.”

“That’s not—” Tom starts, but the woman pats his chest as if telling him to not bother. “Okay, sure, extra baggage.”

Stone approaches her and holds out his hand, which she shakes with a surprisingly firm grip. “Joel,” he says.

“Maddie. Nice to meet you.”

“Likewise.”

“Can I interest you boys in some coffee?” 

The inside of the Wachowski residence rings like déjà vu. The furniture is different and so are the walls, lacking all the bullet holes and embedded glass left behind by the doctor’s drone. The kitchen appliances are stainless steel, and the door leading to the back patio now has an elaborate design on its glass.

On the dining table are two trays, one with an assortment of fruit and the other with fancy pastries, their uniformity informing him they’re store-bought rather than homemade. A uniformity that doesn’t last when Sonic and Tails slide-hop onto the stools and begin piling their plates like ravenous teenagers, briefly arguing over the strawberry jam before Sonic wins and Tails is left looking dejected.

“Help yourself,” Maddie says, handing Stone a mug of steaming hot coffee that smells as wondrous as the first jolt of adrenaline on a boring day.

Stone goes for the banana and relishes the taste of something fresh as opposed to cherry soda, stale nachos, and beef jerky. He grabs a couple of grapes, too. And half a kiwi.

“PB & J?” Tom offers, walking towards the table after preparing his own breakfast, and sliding a plate in front of Stone even when the agent politely shakes his head. “Best one you’ll taste this side of town.”

“Thank you,” Stone says stiffly, thumb and forefinger pinching a grape near bursting. “Beautiful home you have here.”

Maddie snorts. “No one’s holding a gun under the table,” she says. She takes a sip from her mug and side-eyes Tom.

Stone offers her a charming smile, one that is shot down by her own unimpressed one. “The coffee’s good,” is about the only genuine comment he can offer.

She accepts it, and Stone is bewildered at her ability to pick out the lies and the truths. Clearly, she’s the more observant of the two.

“There are some ground rules I’d like to lay out,” Maddie says, and everyone else stops their eating to listen. “Knowing Tom he’s probably been skirting around the situation but I’m here to set the record straight.” She puts down her mug and squares her shoulders, fixing Stone with an even stare. “Your boss tried killing us multiple times. I do not agree with the potentiality of bringing him back, and I do not agree with the fact that you have been informed of this crazy plan. However, you’re currently a guest in this house and you will be treated as such. But if I even get a whiff of anything remotely funky,” she lets the threat hang unsaid before grabbing her mug again. “Do I make myself clear?”

They all look to Stone, who nods his head. “Those weren’t my actions.”

“Silence is complicity,” she says. “Also, no loud music past eight.” This she directs at Sonic, who rolls his eyes but doesn’t complain.

Stone decides he likes her.

The rest of the morning is uneventful. Tom reports to the station on zero amounts of sleep, Sonic and Tails pass out on the couch, and Stone is given the responsibility to take both Onyx and Ozzie, the Wachowski’s retriever, for a walk. He doesn’t protest, deciding that time with animals who don’t talk would greatly improve his sour mood. He’s exhausted, hungry, and the usual static that clouds his thoughts is dispersing and giving way to unpleasant thoughts.

Humans aren’t the only sentient beings in the world.

There is more than one habitable world out there.

There’s more than one universe.

His life for the past two years, give or take, has been a complete fabrication as the government and no doubt other shadier organizations pulled the strings.

Every voice message he’s left the doctor has been in vain, and the doctor isn’t even on Earth.

Robotnik may as well be dead for all they know, and it would all be Stone’s fault.

His life had been a roller coaster ever since he got out of high school, but it had all evened out when he was plucked out of field service to work as a glorified babysitter to the most dangerous human being on the planet. Stone had fought it, hated every second of it, until the day he witnessed the unabashed destruction Robotnik had laid down just to get the result he wanted. Stone hadn’t _approved_ of it, per se, but the doctor’s resilience and sheer devotion to his craft lured him enough to make him stay.

 _Devotion is a pretty good word_ , he thinks, turning back once they reach the end of the street. Stone can pinpoint when he became infatuated with relative ease, but when devotion came into play is something else entirely. It started out with wanting the doctor’s attention, wanting to be praised for his grandiose acts of violence and intrigue—taking down a battalion with his bare hands and a pen, infiltrating top-secret facilities and uploading malware that would benefit the US government. 

Robotnik brushed it all aside. _My babies could have done that in less time_ , or _you weren’t even fashionable, I saw the whole thing._

But then, purely out of spite, Stone had sauntered into the mobile lab—a strict no food or drink zone—with two caramel macchiatos.

He got fired, then rehired five minutes later. Thus began the trend of trying new ways to make the doctor eat his words, but that quickly turned back into Stone’s initial desire for praise. _Of course I want a latte. I love the way you make them._

Stone chalks it up to human instinct. Survival of the fittest, where the apex is a mad genius with hardly any sense of empathy and a limited regard for humankind, and the next best thing is to stand in his shadow and hope not to get caught in the throes of extinction.

Now, there is no apex predator. By all means, Stone ought to feel free to live his best life, and he came close to it, with Robin, in their spacious house. Instead, ever since he was left on the side of an Arizona highway like some unwanted dog, Stone has felt like a computer set on stand-by.

“You two don’t know how good you have it,” he tells the dogs leading the way back to the house.

A patrol car drives past them and Stone watches it park in front of the Wachowski’s lawn. Tom is in the driver’s seat, arguing with a vaguely familiar man sitting next to him. The windows are rolled down, and Stone picks up on their conversation.

“—not again, Tom. Three days! How long’s it gonna be this time? What do you expect me to do?”

“You got everything under control, Wade. Just… fake it till you make it. It’s Green Hills. What’s the worst you think is gonna happen?”

“Uh, gee, let me see. Last time you left we had an all-out brawl between a robot with a doctorate and a blue space creature. When it goes down, _it goes down_.”

Tom shakes his head with a laugh. “It’s going to be fine. I’ll be back before you even realize it.” He opens the car door and waves at Stone, who unclips the dogs’ leashes and lets them roam inside the house. “See you’re still up and about.”

“Maddie asked,” is all Stone offers, holding up the leashes with a shrug.

“What in the—it’s, it’s _you_ ,” Wade says, stepping away from the patrol car to put as much distance between them as possible while staying within earshot. “Ain’t you with the Men in Black?”

Stone suddenly remembers. “I’m sorry. Have we met?”

Wade gawks at him, then at Tom. His mouth works to form words but nothing comes out, and he sits his hands in his hair as he continues to shake his head. “Holy mother of—Tom. Tom. I think they… you know.” He holds up a hand as if holding something in it, pretends to press a button, then mimics a miniature explosion. He mouths the words _memory wipe_.

Both Tom and Stone stare at Wade, then at each other with equally amused expressions. “Alright, Wade. Why don’t you head back to the station and keep an eye out for Crazy Carl? Last I heard, he got his hands on some TNT. Something about another space creature popping up in his yard. A green one.”

“What? No. _No_ , you’ve got to be kidding me!”

“I am.” Tom throws him the keys and shoos him off. “Anything does go wrong, you know where to find me.”

Wade misses the keys by a long shot, scrambling for them while keeping his eyes on Stone. The agent waves at him, and Wade hurries to get behind the wheel and drives off without a backwards glance.

“Guess you do got a sense of humor,” Tom says.

“Only when I want to.”

“He’s a little frazzled by the idea of me heading out for a couple days to get all this sorted out. He keeps asking me to cut my vacation short but, nope. No can do. Bad enough I still hang out around town in uniform while off the clock.”

“Small town,” Stone says. “It shouldn’t take long to come home and change.”

Tom shakes his head with a smile. “Nah. Doesn’t matter anyway, if I’m showing off my badge or not. People still come to me and I still help. It’s the Wachowski way.”

“That’s very noble of you.”

“I’m loyal to this place. Whether or not that’s noble, I don’t really care.” Hooking his thumbs in his pockets, Tom heads for the front door. “Don’t really have a say when my heart’s into it, you know? Sometimes a job’s more than just a job. Only sometimes.” He holds the door open for Stone, who walks inside with no way to reply.

____________________

Dinner is chaotic, despite Maddie’s best attempts at wrangling two teenagers, two dogs, and a husband. She does so with the controlled poise of someone skilled in the art of managing mayhem. It had been Tom’s idea to order Chinese and nobody protested the choice.

While they waited, Stone was granted a shower and a fresh change of clothes.

The last eggroll is split in half after Maddie and Tom played Rock-Paper-Scissors for it but got ten matches in a row. Sonic suggested Tom and Stone arm-wrestle for the last crab wonton, but Stone gracefully conceded before any furniture became damaged beyond repair.

In all, it’s a lighthearted affair and Stone is left feeling out of sorts amidst the cheerful bickering. An outsider peering in, thrown scraps for the sake of establishing some sort of rapport with a means to an end. He shouldn’t be here, at a table with a family he does not know. A family he almost destroyed by proxy.

Stone helps Maddie clear off the table and even assigns himself to dish duty, setting the clean ones in the empty sink before Maddie starts loading them into the dishwasher. It’s a hollow echo of the usual Friday night with Robin.

“Tom set up the guest bedroom,” Maddie says, sorting each utensil into a different compartment in the dishwasher. “He told me you haven’t slept in a while.”

“I was sleeping when he broke into my house.”

“He’s not exactly known for being tactful,” she says with a small laugh. “Are you always like this?”

Stone rinses the last of the cups and passes it to her. “Like what?”

“I don’t know. You interact with people, but it feels like you’re not really seeing who’s in front of you.”

“I see you,” Stone says, lifting an eyebrow.

“Not literally. It’s more like you’re a stereotypical secret agent, all fake and emotionless. Because, let me tell you, that smile of yours isn’t fooling anyone, mister. Nobody smiles that much. Ever.”

“Old habits.”

“You’re a man. I’m sure nobody’s telling you to smile on the job.”

Stone cracks a genuine smile at that. “You’re absolutely right.”

“So? What’s the deal?” She stops loading dishes and leans against the counter, hands crossed over her chest. At Stone’s unwillingness to answer, she nods her head. “You don’t have to be here, and you’re not obligated to help them with whatever crazy plan they come up with. I know what it’s like to finally be rid of a toxic person, and I can only just imagine what the thought of bringing them back into my life must be like.”

A cold rush has Stone scrubbing a plate harder than he should, his jaw clenched. He rinses it and puts it in the clean sink without looking at her, moving on to the next one. He continues until he reaches the last of the dishes, and then he scrubs his hands clean until the hot water scalds his skin. Tapping off the faucet, he stands there, hands hanging over the sink as a thick silence continues long enough to be uncomfortable.

“Oh,” Maddie says, quiet enough to almost be lost to the noise coming from the other room. “I see.”

Stone grabs a neatly folded towel and uses that as an excuse to turn away from her, drying his already dry hands.

“I don’t think anyone in there considered this a possibility,” she says, and Stone can hear her carefully picking her words. “Why you’d want him back—”

“Evil is relative,” Stone says, surprising even himself at the interruption. “Sure, the doctor is by no means your average individual and his intellect is utilized in extremely unorthodox ways, and his ego may be disproportionately big, but he isn’t _intentionally_ evil.”

Maddie looks shocked. “Not what I was going to say, but sure. Let’s continue down that line. You’re saying he’s, what, misunderstood?”

“Yes.”

“Frankenstein’s monster is misunderstood. _Magneto_ is misunderstood.”

“Do you remember the RIN outbreak?” Stone says, swallowing the sour taste on the back of his tongue. “The abolishment of Nauru? The disbanding of the UN?”

Maddie considers him for a long moment. “You mean to tell me that that man single-handedly prevented all these things?”

“A vaccine within forty-eight hours, the introduction of interest-free smart technology for the economy within a week, the removal of a certain problematic ambassador by yours truly. Robotnik has a 100% success rate on everything he does, and, granted, his reasons are hardly ever altruistic, but he won’t solve world hunger and then keep the method to himself.” He sucks in a breath. “He doesn’t need a reason to help, he will do so because he _can_.”

“As long as he gets the recognition he so deserves.”

“I feel like you would have known about these things if recognition is what he wanted out of them.”

“What are you saying, then? He gets a kick out of doing things others can’t? He tried to kill us, Joel.”

Stone straightens up. “Actually, the doctor only developed the intent to neutralize Sonic after he made a fool of him. You two placed yourselves in the crossfire.”

“And that’s _okay_?”

Perhaps not from a moral standpoint, Stone concedes, but as someone who’s been paid by multiple governments to terminate high profile individuals, he has no right to say otherwise. “Nobody’s perfect,” he says, seeing no use in psychoanalyzing Robotnik’s behavior or explaining it to others beyond what he already has. “Regardless of what others may think, I see good in him. He may not like being considered human, but he is.”

Maddie sighs, looking off as she gruels over the conversation. “You can just say you miss him,” she says, oddly soft despite the severe expression on her face. “When’s the last time you talked about him?”

Stone joins her in leaning against the counter, ankles crossed. “It’s not part of my job description.”

“You’re human, too, Stone.” She looks at him with something akin to gentleness in her eyes. “It’s okay to let yourself show how you feel. If you’re gonna let your boss shoot everything, the least you can do is make the world a tiny bit kinder by being honest.”

“Honesty may potentially be his worst quality.”

“But it’s definitely not yours,” she says. “Feels like I’m talking to a person rather than a robot right now.”

Stone sags when the constant, monumental weight that has rested on his shoulders since as long as he can remember finally dissipates. He feels sick. “Sorry the doctor tried to kill you.”

Maddie pushes away with a shake of her head. “Just try and keep him in check once you guys get him back. Or else.” She pops in a detergent pod and starts the dishwasher. “Come on, I think they’re ready.”

The living room is cluttered with dozens of maps, schematics, half-built machines, formulas written out on easel pads, and candy wrappers.

Tom stands off to the side, staring down at the mess with his chin in hand, while Tails pages through a small spiral notebook, pushing Sonic away when he invades his personal space. “Nice of you two to join us,” Tom says, gesturing at the couch.

Maddie sits, but Stone remains at the entryway. He takes in the utter havoc and breathes in deep as it triggers countless memories of him walking in on the doctor frenziedly plotting away. It settles like a shock to his system, one that slowly dissipates the moment Tails begins talking.

“We know the bad guys are keeping Dr. Eggman’s robots locked away somewhere, and we know they have most of Sonic’s rings—”

“All but one,” Sonic says, holding up a gold ring with a despondent look on his face. Stone doesn’t know what he was expecting, but a finger-sized ring was not it.

“Which means we only have one chance and an extremely narrow time frame to get this done. No mess ups,” Tails continues. “Like I mentioned before, the bad guys intend to use this technology to siphon resources from other planets but doing so will destabilize this planet to the point of a PA Event. Which, I’m sure we’ve all seen the weather acting weirder than usual. Any questions before I continue?”

Stone is taken aback. Normally he just figures it out as he goes, being used to never getting any sort of clarification from jargon-laden explanations. He almost shakes his head, but then says, “the bad guys being the government.”

“Yeah.”

“How do the rings work?”

“It’s how all advanced civilizations travel. Think of them as portals: get a place in mind and then the ring opens to it.”

His initial reaction is disbelief, but he’s also talking to an anthropomorphic fox. “That’s how the doctor ended up on another planet,” he says, finally approaching the mess of paperwork strewn over the coffee table. “They have to know an exact location before they open a portal to it, yes?”

Tails nods. “I know what you’re thinking, and I have no doubt they already have their best scientists narrowing down potential exploitable landscapes, some of them in your own backyard. They’re not looking for aliens, they’re looking for resources.”

“And opening these portals harms Earth.”

“The amount of energy needed for the rings to operate is astronomical.” Tails turns to Sonic with a disapproving look. “A planet of this size can probably withstand four activations before it becomes critical, especially without its own port.”

“How was I supposed to know?” Sonic says, holding up his hands. “I only ever used them in case of an emergency.”

“Hm, like when you threw us off a roof,” Maddie says.

“Hey, I saved your life.”

Stone ignores them, looking at the blueprints in front of him. “Don’t you have any?” he asks Tails, going off the assumption that each ring only has one use.

“I used my last one to get here when I was looking for Sonic.”

“How do you get more?”

“You don’t,” Tails says, and doesn’t elaborate. When Stone nods and doesn’t ask any more questions, he continues. “Plan A is the simplest. We go in, grab the robots and the rings, and get out. No equipment, no mission.”

“You want to break into a top-security government facility in hopes of stealing alien technology,” Stone says slowly. “You _are_ aware that it's impossible.”

“Not when we have you.”

Stone laughs. “I don’t have the clearance for that.”

“You work for them,” Tom says, walking over to sit by Maddie. “How hard can it be?”

“I _do_ work for them; I don’t work _for_ them. There’s a difference, and without a doubt there’s a bounty on my head that would make infiltrating any kind of base a suici—really difficult for all parties involved,” he corrects himself, remembering he’s technically in the presence of children.

“But you know where they’re at?” Tails says.

“I know where they keep their tech, but I wasn’t aware they were in possession of his machines. Chances they’re keeping them in a place I know exists are slim, for obvious reasons.” He pauses, briefly recalling something Robin had said during their squabble. “They’re expecting us.”

“What?”

“Robin said that they’d get the codes out of me—” Stone sits down on the rug, a hand covering half his face as he processes information at a thousand miles per second. “They do have the robots and they need me to turn them on.” Without the nanogloves, which the doctor has undoubtedly destroyed before embarking on any crazy chase, the only way to control the robots is to access and reroute their operating software into a different type of hardware. Knowing the doctor, however, Stone is certain he changed the codes the moment he booted the agent off his service. “They know I’ll come for the machines.”

“Which is why I’ve devised a plan they won’t expect! Also known as plan A part two,” Tails says, enthusiastically digging through the blueprints. He finds what he’s looking for and holds it up.

“A robot.”

“Not just any robot! A bigger and stronger one than any robot Eggman could possibly create!”

Stone rubs his face in exasperation. “Not only are Robotnik’s machines unstoppable—”

“Not true!” Tom says, swinging his arms as if swinging a bat. “A good ol’ frying pan can do the trick.”

“—there’s an entire army of them,” Stone continues, ignoring him. “You can’t hope to fight fire with fire when one source is a volcano and the other is the sun.”

“You underestimate Tails here,” Sonic says, hoping on top of the table and jabbing a thumb in Tail’s directly. “He’d give Eggman a run for his money any day.”

Stone doubts it. “I don’t doubt it,” he says, “but unless you have an arsenal’s worth of materials it would take years to build anything remotely close.”

“Let me introduce you to plan A part three,” Tails says, but has nothing to demonstrate as he crosses his arms in front of his chest and looks at Stone with a boggling smile.

The agent looks around as everyone stares at him expectantly. It takes a moment for it all to click. “The only resource we need,” he says.

“We bring Eggman back.”

Stone holds up a hand. “I see what you mean by this being convoluted. This all hangs on the Bureau somehow getting the access codes from me, codes that might not even work. If we just let it be, they won’t be able to turn on the robots. No harm done.” The looks he’s given tells him he’s wrong. “There’s something else.”

“We were attacked by a fleet of drones last month,” Tom says, “on our way back from Fall River. That’s how Sonic lost his rings.”

“That’s impossible. There’s no way they can control them.”

“They didn’t look like any machine from three years ago.”

“Which means they were somehow able to reverse engineer elements of his hardware,” Tails says. “We need him back. I… I must trust my calculations that say Eggman would be far angrier at someone using his technology than at Sonic for, well, being Sonic.”

Stone gets up, tugging on the sleeves of the flannel shirt he’s been lent as he stops in front of one of the glass windows. It’s dark out, and he can barely see the sky from beneath the thick cover of trees. He runs and analyzes his own statistics. Robotnik would undoubtedly burn the whole world to the ground if anyone other than himself had control of his robots. His babies, as he used to call them. His lab has a self-destruct button for a reason. “The last ring is used to open up a portal to the mushroom planet?”

“Given the delicate nature of the mission, we’re saving it in case of an emergency.”

“Then how are we going to get to him?”

Tails rummages through the papers and holds up yet another blueprint. “Leave that to me.”

“We may be out of rings, but we still have me,” Sonic says, holding up one of his quills. “And Tails’ brain. What do you say, Spy Guy? Ready to get your boss back?”

Stone nods his head, not entirely sold on the plan, but ready to do anything to bring the doctor home.

“Excellent,” Tails says.

“I still don’t see where I come in.”

“Oh, yeah, about that.” Tails pulls out the same contraption Stone has seen him use before, one that looks like an old-style cell phone. He pushes half a dozen buttons while humming to himself, eyes squinting in concentration before he finds what it is that he’s looking for. “We know where Eggman is and I’m currently working on a way of getting to him. As for you, Spy Guy, you’ll be doing reconnaissance.”

“Please, don’t call me that.”

Both Tom and Maddie shake their heads at him, with Maddie gesturing that it may as well be a lost cause to get them to call him by any other name from now on.

Tails holds up a drawing that has Stone’s breath catching in his throat. “We’re going to need a flyer, and I’ve got a feeling you’re the only person currently on this planet with the ability to work one.”


	5. Grow Hold and Break

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _I'd rather give up_   
>  _and be happy._   
> 
> 
>     — **Home** , Madeon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That last bit at the end? Yeah. That's when it all starts going downhill.

Despite the peak of summer making itself viscerally known by the time the sun is at its zenith, the pleasantly cool breeze brought down by the mountain range in the early morning is a gift, especially as he sits out on the porch with a freshly brewed cup of coffee warming his hands. The smell of pine and upturned dirt mingles with the rich aroma below his nose, reminding him of a childhood spent camping by the Great Lakes. Fog meanders at the end of the driveway, engulfing the road.

His mind feels sharper after a few nights of actual rest, the windows to the guest bedroom cracked open against his better judgement. He wonders why the Wachowskis continue to stay in Green Hills despite the obvious target painted on the town, danger imminently looming over their simple lifestyle. Tom’s comment about loyalty still loops at the front of his mind.

Stone, too, continued to return to the doctor’s side regardless of the danger and continuous mental stress. Because despite all the verbal lashings and snide commentary, there had been camaraderie in every stitch of the fabric that held them both together in a world that was constantly against them. Stone needed Dr. Robotnik as much as the doctor needed him, for a plethora of reasons he has no time to detail, but each one as real and as tangible as the robots he so tenderly crafted and cared for.

Yes, robots don’t talk back, or ask for time off, or complain, or lie, or betray, or bully. Machines act according to their programming, and when the brains behind said programming inputs the desired protocol in place, there is no possibility of surprise or unpredictability. That’s where Stone enters the picture—the only organic pillar holding up the doctor’s unstable foundation. A source of organic interaction. A machine that can feel, but also one that can respond and nurture.

He wonders if anything will change if they succeed in retrieving the doctor, if he’d want anything to change. He misses the ramblings, the hammy expressions, and over the top reactions to the simplest inconvenience. He misses other things, too, the things that were new and tumultuous as they tried to navigate through them, the doctor’s intellect falling short in the realm of physicality.

Stone misses Robotnik, and the heaviness that has slept in his chest for years becomes unbearable at the prospect of being able to see him again.

A knock on the door frame pulls him away from his reverie, and Stone looks down when the door swings open.

Tails hops up to sit on the wooden railing, swinging his red and white shoes and scratching behind his ear in a gesture that means he’s hesitating to say something. Stone doesn’t push, letting him gather himself.

“The gate’s almost done,” he says. “We should probably head out within the next two days.”

“Sounds good,” Stone says, leaning against the column and putting his mug down on the railing. “Three days to build a portable interplanetary gateway with scraps gathered around town. Color me impressed.”

“It’s nothing really.” Tails laughs awkwardly, holding onto the edge of the railing as he looks away from Stone. “Anything can be done with the right kind of motivation and morale. You’ve been a huge help.”

“Me?” Stone says with a surprised smile. “I just walk the dogs and try to keep Sonic out of your fur while you work.”

“Every little thing helps.”

“What made me trustworthy, in the end?”

Tails turns to him with a thoughtful twist of the mouth. “I don’t know. Call it a hunch, I guess.”

It’s refreshing, having a genius admit they don’t know everything. “I can’t help thinking the doctor would kind of like you. Were things different.”

“He’s dumb and I don’t want to be his friend. But, considering you are kind of sort of my friend, I can tolerate him as long as he doesn’t try to kill my other friends again.”

Stone opens his mouth to speak then shuts it, alarmed by the sudden blow of contentment that tugs at the corner of his mouth, making him smile with actual feeling. “Now, you know I can’t promise that.”

Tails nods. “I know. We’ll cross that bridge when we get there,” he says, holding out a fist, expectantly. Stone stares at it before hesitantly lifting his own. Tails bumps it. “Two days.”

“Two days.”

________________________

“Heard you were out and about today,” Maddie says by way of greeting as she walks into the house, a pair of scrubs still on. “Wade’s still keeping an eye on you.”

Stone’s reply is to gesture towards a garment bag draped on the back of the couch. He’s currently sifting through the list of things Tails left him to pack, while said fox helped a certain hedgehog with his math homework.

“You know you could have just used our Prime account, right?”

“I’m sure you wouldn’t want something like cast boosters showing up on your search history,” he says. “Luckily, the hardware shop had just what we needed.”

“You’re joking,” Maddie says, looking over his shoulder to check the assortment of innocuous purchases he’s organizing into a duffel bag. “Holy… Don’t scare me like that. I better not find any T.N.T. in my house.”

“You have a supersonic space hedgehog living in your attic and you’re worried about explosives?”

“Point taken. He also said you were eyeing the old house off 7th and Main. It’s a bit of fixer-upper but the plot’s nice.”

Stone pauses what he’s doing and sits back, rattling the box of screws in his hand. “Keeping an eye on me or stalking me? Because there’s a difference.”

“He’s on to you,” Maddie says mockingly, walking into the kitchen to drop off her bag. “Green Hills is a pretty neat place to settle down, though, if you’re thinking about it. Quiet town with your occasional extraterrestrial passerby.”

“I’m more of a big city kind of guy.”

“State of the art surveillance, killer drones, maybe plutonium underneath fire hydrants. Big city vibes with the small-town aesthetic.”

Stone laughs, and after slipping the last of their travel materials into the duffle bag, zips it up. “I’ll think about it.”

“You can consider it an investment for retirement.”

“Hm, why retire to Norway when I can just retire to Montana.”

“I bet Norway doesn’t have almond bear claws from Anne’s bakery.”

Stone puts the bag by Sonic’s backpack on the couch. “I’m not worth a dime in insurance,” he says. “Having me here won’t keep the doctor from doing something less than favorable.”

“Then why were you looking at real estate?”

“I wasn’t. The house just reminded me of the place I used to spend my summers at as a kid.”

“Well,” Maddie says, “if you change your mind, I can put a word in with Sonya at the realtor’s.”

A ruckus breaks out in the attic, one that makes the house shake and the lamplights rattle in their sockets. Ozzy and Onyx pad into the living room with their tails wagging excitedly, as if to see what the commotion is all about.

“Algebra,” is all the explanation Maddie offers.

________________________

“Fort Willis,” Tom announces, spatula in hand and dripping grease onto the hardwood deck. “Look, I know we agreed not to talk business until after dinner, but I needed to get that out there before any of us go into a food coma.”

Maddie shoots him a glare from her spot at the table but doesn’t comment, mildly preoccupied with pushing the dogs away with her foot as she sets out buns for the burgers Tom is currently grilling out on the patio.

“Never heard of it,” Stone says, placing juice boxes in the cooler.

“Not a lot of people have. Wade’s old man mentioned it once when talking about his days in the Air Force, but then he changed his tune, said he meant Fort Ellis down in Florida.”

“You think they’re keeping the machines there rather than Groom Lake?”

Tom flips the burgers, taking a step back when flames erupt with a crackle. “Groom Lake?”

Stone shuts the cooler lid and sits on it, resting his elbows on his knees. “You’re going to have to give me something more than just a name, Tom.”

“Tails did some research. Something about satellites and infrared, I think, and he found what looks to be a military base in the middle of nowhere Idaho. Call it a hunch, but I think that’s our location.”

“If it’s your hunch we’re relying on, be my guest to infiltrate the base yourself.”

“Look,” Tom abruptly stops and looks out towards the tree line as if he’s heard something. “We’re not leaving until tomorrow. We’ll get the confirmation we need by then.”

Stone gets up and follows Tom’s line of sight, walking off the deck and towards the overgrown yard. All he can see are a pair of raccoons scurrying off towards the trash cans. He hadn’t heard anything, but he’s willing to trust a person whose hearing is fine-tuned to the wilderness.

“You verify your source and we’ll get on our way,” Stone says, backing away slowly and shooing Ozzy inside.

Dinner is uneventful, with Tom having made enough burgers to go around and then some, garnering both dogs their fair share of fresh meat. They steer clear of any topics involving their upcoming mission, choosing instead to discuss what boring things Tom worked on despite being on vacation, Sonic’s hatred towards solving for X, Maddie’s exciting day that involved removing six tennis balls from a horse’s stomach— _“Jenny’s expected to make a full recovery.”_ —and, lastly, Tails’ disappointment towards earthlings for not adopting renewable energy sources sooner.

“Looks like you have a bright future ahead of you, _Joel_ ,” Tom remarks, taking a swig of his beer. “Lots of busy folks could use a dog walker around these parts.”

Stone holds up his own bottle with a solemn nod. “Someone has to keep an eye on the dogs. Especially the ones with badges on their shirts.”

Sonic bursts out laughing. “Everyone knows dogs don’t wear shirts!”

“Alright, alright,” Tom says, threateningly aiming the top of his bottle at Stone, who smiles amicably and takes another drink. “Wise guy.”

“I think you mean Spy Guy,” Sonic says, waving a pair of finger guns and winking at Stone. “My brain keeps trying to say James Bond, but everything just reeks of John Wick. Hey, how many cars have you totaled? My record’s still at two, but just you wait until some Russian—”

“Wait a minute,” Maddie says. “We’ve never let you watch those movies.”

“Oh, uh.” Sonic chuckles, scratching the back of his head. “I may have snuck up one night and watched it through the window?”

Maddie gives him a disapproving look before shifting if to Tom, then back to Sonic. “You’re grounded, mister.”

“I can’t get grounded now! We got a super-secret important mission tomorrow. Tell her, Donut Lord.”

“You leave me out of this.”

“Tails?”

“Nope.”

“Spy Guy? What am I doing, there’s no point asking you. You’re literally just a knock-off Keanu.”

Stone makes no comment, popping the last stake fry into his mouth.

The fuss eventually calms down, with Sonic and Tails sent to bed while Tom and Maddie wrap up the last of the day’s chores. The three of them talk shop over coffee, with Maddie deciding to head out with the dogs and lay low in Wyoming with some of Tom’s family while the rest of them get their work done.

Stone takes the dogs out one last time before closing the door to the backyard and hitting the lights, wishing the Wachowskis a good night as they shuffle away towards their room. As for him, he grabs another mug of coffee and sits out on the front porch, listening to the cicadas cry far into the night.

He sits with a blissfully quiet mind, idly staring off into the trees across the street and taking in the dying throes of heat as it dissipates off the wooden surfaces around him.

 _Do you ever dream of retirement, Agent Stone?_ the doctor once asked him on one of those rare days when his mood had been pleasant, as he cooed at his completed prototype. At Stone’s automatic affirmation, the doctor had scoffed. _Typical. All you live for is the day when you finally get to be even less of a productive member of this excuse of a society._

In truth, Stone has never even considered a world in which he isn’t on duty of some sort. Even relieved from the doctor’s service, Stone occupied himself with contracts, both on and off the books, as business carried on as usual. There’s a reputation, a barcode embedded into his DNA that doesn’t allow him the luxury of casual living. Working for Robotnik, the doctor was somehow able to shield him from that world, wipe his slate clean and scramble his location, so to speak, for the agent to focus all his talents on the doctor’s tasks.

For people like Stone, there’s only one surefire way to retirement. Luckily, Stone has yet to miss dodging the literal bullet.

Bringing the mug up to his mouth, he pauses, the click of cicadas accompanied by another sound he can’t immediately identify.

Stone strains to listen—a faraway beep that is almost hidden amidst the ambient noise. It’s consistent in its volume, a metronome that wasn’t there a minute ago. 

His heartbeat syncs up to it before years of trained instinct kicks in, dropping the mug and running for the front door, throwing it open.

“Everyone out of the house, _now!_ _Let’s go!_ ”

He wastes no time in tracking down the ticking, pushing aside the sound of footsteps frantically scrambling down the hallway in favor of finding the imminent danger.

“What’s the—” Tom begins then stops, freezing mid eye-rub when he hears it.

“Grab the others and go,” Stone commands, shoving him aside as he narrows down the beeping to just below the attic door. He grabs the string and pulls, realizing his mistake a little too late.

The red light on the bottom step begins beeping faster.

“Sonic!”

“Way ahead of you!” Sonic yells back, zipping past Stone in a stream of blue light.

Tom grabs Stone by the back of his shirt and yanks him towards the door. “No time,” he says, picking up on Stone’s hesitation.

Turning on their heels they run towards the front door, the beeping now resonating deep inside of Stone’s ears as he jumps over the steps leading down to the driveway. He waves his arms for Maddie to get farther away, to keep running and not stop, but heat reaches his back before the sound does, ramming into him and throwing him a yard over.

Beeping is replaced by a subtle ringing as Stone opens his eyes, and all he can see is an amorphous pillar of orange and yellow against a black backdrop swirling towards the sky. Scorching heat prickles along his skin, urging him to get up and check his surroundings in search of the Wachowskis, but instead he comes face to face with something he has never seen before.

A black, floating cube with a circular green bulb at its head hovers near inches from his face, scanning him before backing up and switching the wave for a tiny red dot in the middle of the agent’s forehead. 

Stone is about to roll out of the way when a loud _clank_ sends the drone flying, Tom standing over him with a baseball bat in hand.

“You’d think roboticists would learn and make their machines a little more durable,” he says, holding out a hand for Stone to take. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” Stone says, glancing at him with a wince. His right ribs ache, but he writes it off as him landing on them. “Where’s Maddie? The boys?”

“They’re fine. Sonic was able to grab Tails and the dogs before the bomb went off.” Tom nods his head to the beat of his own words before walking away from Stone, hands on his hips, then in his hair. “Bomb went… That’s my house,” he says quietly, facing the raging inferno. “That’s our home.” He turns and points at the drone, half unseeing. “That thing was gonna—”

“Tom, we have to go,” Stone says, grabbing him by the arm. “This place is no longer safe.” Anger surges powerful through his chest, wrenching him into action. “Call Wade and make something up. We’re going. Now.”

“Where?”

“Fort Willis,” he says, no longer doubting. They must have overheard and decided to act before any altercation could take place.

Stone walks over to the drone, nudging its obscene design around with his foot before kicking it hard enough to send it flying a matter of feet. He does it again and again, following the wreckage until the red light flickers, and then squats beside it. Stone makes sure he’s looking right into it, the corners of his mouth tilting in a viciously calm smile. 

“I’m coming for you,” he says. “And there’s nothing you can do about it.”


	6. Tip of the Needle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _like a bird in the snow,_  
>  this is no place to build your home.  
> 
> 
>     — **Friction** , Imagine Dragons

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know how Lee Majdoub once said that it would be cool if Agent Stone could kick butt? Well.

The surveillance room only has one guard: a human woman in a fancy blue uniform who sits in front of a wall of monitors, six by twelve screens total. She scrolls through a silver tablet, one that has tiny labeled dots that move around the precise layouts of the multi-leveled base. Attention level: zero. 

It’s exactly what he needs, and she doesn’t stand a chance against _The Blue Blur_.

“I come in peace,” Sonic announces, and it’s enough to get the lady to turn around, see him, gasp, and promptly pass out. “Man, you’d think all these goons would be a little more tolerant to a totally normal looking hedgehog.” 

He grabs the badge hanging from her neck and presses it to the scanner by the steel door, opening it with a quiet swoosh. It takes some effort, but he rolls her out of the room and locks the door before anyone outside realizes anything funky. 

They have twenty minutes, tops, to get in and get out.

Sonic gets on the desk and adjusts his headset, looking at the tablet and trying to make sense at what he’s seeing. “Alright, okay, you got this. Settings first…” After plenty of poking and prodding, he’s able to bring up the menu he wants, as well as the tiny black screen Tails told him to type some sentences into. “Got it! Sending data now and… I sure hope they have good wi-fi.”

Thirty seconds, and he’s got the information he needs.

“Sierra Golf, this is Bravo Delta. Come in, over.” No response. “That’s you, Spy Guy. Over.” All he hears is static. “This can’t be good.”

Sonic reads the instructions flashing on the tablet screen and tries to follow them to the best of his ability, counting the seconds each dot is on the screen and correlating them to the people walking through the base on the surveillance screens.

“The lobby is all clear. I repeat, the lobby is all clear.” He watches the screen at the center of the monitor array and – there! – moving just off screen—a hint of black. “You can hear me! Well, why didn’t you just say so?”

Stone steps into frame only for a second, giving the camera an unimpressed look and a shake of his head.

“I _guess_ you have to be quiet, but where’s the fun in that? Guess I’ll have to fill the silence myself.” Sonic narrows his eyes at the tablet when new instructions pop up. “Here’s a gift from Tails, says he’s analyzed estimated rotation times and… yeah, okay, whatever. I’m connecting them to your watch.”

He sits down in the big office chair and holds the tablet in his lap, keeping his attention split between it and the monitors.

    Fifteen minutes.

During a two-minute window, one of the halls being monitored is devoid of any living person, and that is the hall Stone sneaks through. Or, should be sneaking through, Sonic notices, setting down the tablet and getting onto his knees to get up close with the screens. He taps a gloved finger against it. “I thought you were supposed to keep a low profile.”

Spy Guy doesn’t.

Sonic watches as the glass doors to the front lobby slide open, and in walks Agent Stone like he owns the place. He pauses only to tug on the lapels of his pristine black jacket – the one they had to stop at a bank to get, of all places. Who keeps a whole suit in a vault? Apparently, secret agents – and adjust the shiny red cufflinks on his sleeve.

A military suit approaches him and exchanges a word with the agent, and Stone replies with subtle hand gestures, even when the suit pulls out a firearm and aggressively signals towards the door. Two other suits come in behind him and Sonic would bite his nails if he could, the tension making him bounce on his knees, but then, _then_ , Agent Stone does what is – without a doubt – the coolest thing Sonic has ever seen anyone do.

Grabbing the first suit’s firearm, he pulls him in and twists his whole arm around his neck, making the suit drop the weapon. Stone uses his shoe – his shoe! – to kick it up into the air and grab it in one fluid motion. He aims it at suits two and three, who run at him as if he hadn’t just done a super James Bond move. The speed with which Stone moves is impressive for a non-powered-up human, and at one point he even uses the entirety of suit three to knock suit two to the floor.

“Alright, okay, keep it together, Sonic. Spy Guy just became the coolest person you have ever met but you gotta keep it together here.”

    Fourteen minutes.

An alarm goes off somewhere, and bright red lights start flashing overhead.

“Uh-oh. We’ve got trouble.”

His leg bounces with jittery energy, flipping his attention from the tablet, to each of the individual screens, to the door. No updates from Tails – so Sonic assumes he’s sending information directly to the agent from the safety of Red River, Oregon, where he, Tom, Maddie, and the second-best animal friends wait for them to return. 

He wishes there was some noise other than the blaring klaxons.

He freezes when he hears rapid gunfire through the static-filled headset, followed by very loud thuds and grunts, and an explosion.

One of the surveillance monitors has gone white, but he catches Stone walking into frame two monitors over. He looks unbothered, and in his hands is probably the biggest gun Sonic has ever seen in his life. He watches the agent sling its strap over his head and let it hang beside his hip, before unbuttoning his jacket and pushing back the lapels to reveal two smaller guns strapped to his shoulder holsters.

Four more people come at him, but neither are quick enough to actually land anything. Stone uses the firearms as blunt weapons, knocking the military officials out cold before walking over them and continuing his path of—surprisingly non-lethal—destruction.

    Thirteen minutes.

“In case we don’t make it out of this,” he says to nobody in particular, “I, Sonic Wachowski – yeah, that’s right, I’m a Wachowski now, what of it? – hereby declare the entire government to be a bunch of jerks! They blew up my cave, my _home_ , stole my last ring, nearly killed Spy Guy, just because they can’t think of anything other than themselves. They are selfish, they are dumb, and – I’m gonna say it and nobody can stop me – they are well rounded motherfu—”

________________

“Whoa, there. Language,” Stone chastises over his earpiece, shooting a disapproving glance at one of the security cameras in hopes Sonic sees it.

He brings his attention back to the task at hand, and that involves crossing a mile’s worth of armed soldiers to get to his destination with only twelve minutes on the clock. Stone winces at the sting below his ribs, the bloom of red nearly invisible against the black fabric of his clothing. With any luck, he disabled the camera before Sonic got the opportunity to see him get grazed by a stray bullet. Not that it matters, considering there’s only so far he can go without resorting to the casings strapped to his belt and holsters.

A woman comes at him from behind and he ducks out of the way and into a spin, using his momentum to deliver an open-palmed blow to her solar plexus. She drops with a wheezing cough. “Left yourself open,” he says, before moving on. No time to incapacitate every single person on the base, just those that get in his way.

Were it any other field mission, this would have gone much quicker. Going through a near unlimited arsenal tends to facilitate the infiltration of places with the highest level of security, but as it stands, he has a kid watching his every move. Stone doesn’t owe him anything, he doesn’t owe anyone anything, but a nagging sense of responsibility continues to tug at his chest. The world may be an awful place, and he may be an equally awful human being for the things he has done and will likely continue to do if needed, but the least he can do is keep some spark of innocence alive. Never mind that they sent in a teenager for a potential suicide mission.

Stone does, however, open fire on the drones programmed to neutralize him. They are of the same blocky design as the one in Green Hills, with their black matte finish and flashy red lights. They lack the smoothness of Robotnik’s design, looking more like they came out from a general assembly line rather than the bench of a master artist. They are repugnant and, most importantly, fragile.

Stone brings each drone down with a single precise shot, reloading as he steps over their wiry carcasses on his way forward, sneaking glances at his watch for further instructions.

    Eleven minutes.

He breaks into a run once he reaches the back lot through the main lobby, and is immediately forced to use shipping containers, trashcans, tables, and every other surface as a shield as he goes. Dozens, if not hundreds, of drones and soldiers take aim at him, and he curses his own pledge to not harm anyone too badly. The robots are fair game, but not the government agents – none of which he recognizes – or the privates sporting their freshly laundered fatigues.

“Agent Stone!” 

Stone skids to a stop, dropping his Glock and grabbing the Benelli M4, resting it against his shoulder and training the shotgun at none other than Robin Tok. “We knew you’d come,” she says, the click of her shoes sonorous against the concrete landing pad, “even if some incentive was needed.”

Stone aims at her leg and opens fire. The shell ricochets off her pleated pants. He shoots again, this time at her hip. She flinches but is otherwise unmoved.

Robin casually unbuttons her suit jacket and reaches for the revolvers on either side of her hips.

The barrage of bullets that follow has Stone running across the open courtyard, sliding behind a tower of industrial sized tires for cover. He weighs his options, and each looks as slim as the previous one, leaving him with the unfortunate decision of having to incapacitate her. Permanently, if he must.

“Dammit.” Grabbing the Beretta and loading a clip, Stone wastes no more time. He emerges and opens fire one-handed, only to brace himself when Robin shoulder-checks him to the ground, gun sliding away from their scuffle.

The gleam of a karambit knife catches the corner of his eye and Stone jerks sideways before Robin nicks his neck. She misses but only barely, the tip of the blade making a grating sound across the concrete before she’s slashing again. Stone kicks her off.

He’s out of shells and out of handguns, but that’s hardly a problem.

“What’s up, babe? You’re awfully quiet tonight,” she says, adjusting her jacket and combing back her hair. “But what else is new?”

Stone removes his necktie and wraps the ends around both his fists, pulling it taut as he widens his stance. “I’m afraid I’m pressed for time.”

Robin tsks. “Ain’t that a bitch? Always a hassle when both people have such demanding jobs.”

________________

    Nine minutes.

“Spy Gal?” She looks different, her hair cut short and dyed a different color, but it’s definitely the same lady.

Sonic stands with his forehead pressed against the monitor, jaw slack as he ogles the scene in front of him unravel like a movie. 

He gasps when Stone gets close enough – despite the constant arching of a knife – to get his tie under the lady’s neck and pull back. The lady scrambles for only a second before she shimmies out of her jacket and uses it to return the favor by twisting it at her wrists and flipping over under the tie, wrapping it around Stone’s forearms and maneuvering him into a headlock.

    Eight minutes.

Stone elbows her on the nose and throws her over his shoulder, sprawling her on the floor. She jumps up with one of those karate-like moves and flows into a roundhouse kick. Stone blocks it with an arm as she repeats the move, from the opposite direction this time, but he’s too quick to be taken off guard.

“Oooh. Ha! Take that!” Sonic holds up his hands, poorly imitating what he sees. “Chances he’ll teach me some moves? Okay, not likely, but wow.”

He looks back at the screen to see them both entwined like a pretzel, moving ever so slightly until the lady does something Sonic can’t see at this angle, but whatever it is makes Stone let go and immediately grab his side as she stumbles to stand out from under him. She’s saying something as she looms over him, but despite the obvious pain Stone is in, he kicks her feet out.

He comes for her as he lays prone, but she kicks him right over – like Simba throwing Scar into the gaggle of hyenas in The Lion King. The lady straddles him and gets at least three punches in before Stone grabs her fist, twists it, and applies enough pressure to get her off him. Once free, he twists her whole arm in a way that shouldn’t be bent – and Sonic knows how far a human arm can go, he’s seen Pretzel Lady push those boundaries way too many times.

The lady headbutts him and immediately slides into an elbow to the gut with the arm that isn’t limp by her side. She hits him in the chest and they both pause for a second before she knocks him onto his back with ease.

Sonic stops. “Oh, no. No no no, Agent Stone?”

________________

Stone winces when Robin jams the sole of her polished shoe against his neck, regulating his airflow at her discretion. “Suddenly not so into it, huh, babe?” she says, grinding down and forcing him to gasp. “I do hate to get my shoes dirty with a brother, especially at the lack of a contract, but—hard times call for desperate measures. The codes, Stone.”

“No.”

“You had your chance,” she says, pulling out a Kahr CT9 from a holster at her back. She cocks it and aims it pointblank at his forehead, her index finger caressing the trigger as she looks him over with pursed lips. Lowering the gun, she sighs. “Uncle Sam won’t let me pull the trigger, sadly. You’re still _essential_ to this operation, so they say. Just wanted a chance to knock you down a few pegs.”

Robin kicks him over the fresh knife wound on his side, making Stone grunt and huff.

“You’ve gone soft, _ubiytsa_. It is in your best interest you get your boss back as soon as possible before visits are paid.”

Stone stops struggling, staring up at Robin with a vicious pang of dread now writhing in his stomach. It has been years since he’s last heard that word, and that can only mean one sickening thing.

Robin eases her foot off his neck and holds up her broken arm with the one still intact, resting it against her chest and raising her index finger so that it stands across her heart. “The Ivory Tower sends their regards.”

He should have known.

“Now, now, agents, there’s no need for any of this.” Major Bennington – now Lieutenant Colonel Bennington, judging by the shiny new badges on his uniform – marches into their space, looking at Robin and dismissing her with a jab of his chin. She clenches her jaw but silently steps back into formation, joining the mixture of suits and fatigues that had stood idly by and watched the spectacle unfold. “Get up, Agent Stone. I’ve seen you do more with worse injuries.”

    Five minutes.

Stone rolls onto his knees with a breathless cough, then pushes off the ground with only the mildest sway. He briefly looks around himself and nods his head once he finds it: his bloodied necktie. Taking it from where it lay in an assuming heap, Stone stiffly slides it under the collar of his shirt, says: “where is it?”

“I don’t know what you are talking about.”

Stone holds the short end of the tie and pulls the longer end over it. Fifteen more agents close in, all of them loaded and ready. “The ship.”

“Oh, that thing.” Bennington scoffs, taking off his cap and holding it to his chest in an attempt to seem harmless. He keeps his eyes on the necktie, however. “Let’s strike a deal, Agent Stone. The ship for the access codes.”

“Looks like you don’t need the codes.” He gestures towards the drones hovering overhead, their inaction speaking volumes of the control the military holds over them. “You’ve got your own army.”

“They don’t really have the same _zing_ as Robotnik’s machines. It would take us years to mimic what he’s accomplished in the field of artificial intelligence, and we just don’t have the time.” Bennington spits and looks around at the other agents. “And neither do you.”

“You don’t have the manpower to put me down, Lieutenant Colonel,” he says, eyeing Robin as her silhouette floats in and out of his peripheral vision.

He finishes a Windsor knot and flattens it against his rumpled shirt, pushing out the stinging and the pain currently pulsating throughout his body. Standing in place takes more effort than moving.

Bennington snort, then laughs outright, holding out a hand as if to show the others around them who is delivering the threats. “Intimidation is a fool’s tactic.”

“Intimidation is psychological warfare, and this is a war you’re not going to win. Give me the robots, or the base goes up.”

“You’re bluffing.”

All Stone offers him a smile.

“This is treason. On American soil.”

“I don’t work for you.”

“We’ll smoke you all out, and when we do—”

“You still won’t have the codes,” Stone says, adjusting his jacket. “I’m sure the economy will do just fine running on fossil fuels for the next decade or so. No urgent need for those interplanetary resources.”

Bennington’s nose twitches. “I’ll finish what that batshit madman started. I’ll find that alien, and then my men will dissect it; use that for backup power until we get around to figuring out the whole interplanetary dilemma, hm? We don’t need your robots. We’ll gut them and use them for scraps.”

    Three minutes.

Stone cracks his knuckles and holds his hands in front of him, over the empty shotgun’s strap, eyes fixed on the hanger doors just behind the Lieutenant Colonel and his entourage. Human beings are always such predictable creatures. “I wish you good luck.”

The stream of electric blue light sends everyone present scrambling, for the exception of Robin who blows Stone a kiss amidst the sudden jolt of chaos before walking away from the fray.

Sonic succeeds in knocking most soldiers to the ground, and Stone takes on the few stragglers that won’t go down without a fight. He briefly feels a light yet blunt force against his back, a certain hedgehog casually launching off him, but it isn’t enough to deter him from the task at hand.

His watch beeps at the final countdown, hitting the ten second mark as Stone knees a stocky man in the stomach, before roundhouse kicking him across the head. He hears a loud crack, and honestly hopes that was his own knee protesting the force.

At the final sustained beep comes the loud, simultaneous sound of decompressing locks, followed by the creaking grind of metal on metal.

“Go!” Sonic yells, running in a tight circle to keep everyone away from the agent. “Take the flyer! I’ll catch up!”

Stone makes a break for the now open hanger, skidding to a stop before the machine and pausing just long enough to get a good eyeful. 

Robotnik had called it the Type 2 model, despite the Type 1 never making it out of the prototype stage. He puts his hands against the cool glossy finish and is startled when the surface instantly warms up beneath his touch, soft vibrations and a barely detectable hum indicating the flyer powering on.

The agent hops in with some complicated maneuvering due to its cramped surroundings and sits in the pilot chair, perplexed at the speed with which the interior adjusts itself to fit his personal dimensions. The dash console comes to life in hues of blue and red. _Good evening, Agent A. Stone_ , it reads, before the letters fade to be replaced by half a dozen holographic screens tracking everything from the weather, topographical data, to his vitals.

Still set within the headspace of _agent_ , Stone stores away the jitteriness that suddenly overtakes his limbs and deploys the bladeless side propellers. His heart rams painfully against his ribcage for countless reasons, but he pushes them all aside and focuses on flying the ship.

“I’m sure you’ll need this, hotshot,” Sonic says, materializing seemingly out of nowhere in front of Stone. He hands him a quill. “Straight shot to Oregon. I’ll see you there, partner.”

By the time Stone places the quill on its allotted slot, Sonic is gone again, erecting a barrier between the hanger and the military goons trying to get through.

No flight suit, no previous experience piloting experimental aircraft, and only one important thing left to lose.

“I need you to be alive, Doctor,” Stone mutters once he truly gets the flyer off the ground. “Because if you made it, then so can I.”

Gently grasping the control wheel, Stone sucks in a breath, and eases it back.


	7. Solid Block of Gold

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _As I'm looking up_   
>  _Suddenly the sky erupts_   
> 
> 
>     — **Trampoline** , SHAED

The adrenaline plateaus as the flyer reaches cruising altitudes, shifting from Mach 2 to a more bearable speed to keep its pilot from developing an embolism mid flight. 

Stone switches it to autopilot and leans back in the seat, rubbing clammy hands against his pants as he focuses on his breathing, the pain in his chest slowly easing after the initial takeoff. He isn’t afraid of heights or speed, but the initial G-force had made him lightheaded enough to trigger the emergency life support systems, pumping the cockpit full of oxygen.

But he isn’t dead. 

That was three minutes’ worth of lethal force against his body, and he is alive. Either a testament to personal prowess or the doctor’s clever engineering, he isn’t sure, but he’s grateful, nonetheless.

He takes a moment to assess the situation. 

The watch on his wrist doesn’t seem to be working, neither receiving nor sending out messages to base, but that may be due to security protocols on the flyer. Invisible to radar and dead silent in the air, Stone wouldn’t be surprised. 

His personal firearms are gone, utilized in various creative ways at Fort Willis. All he has left is the shotgun – fresh out of shells – and a handful of knives hidden throughout his person. 

_Not bad_ , he thinks to himself. That could have gone much worse, and it should have gone much worse. For a military base unspeakably more secretive than Groom Lake in Nevada, it had been embarrassingly easy to break into, even by his standards. Stone glances over the radar, then looks at the sky around him through the canopy but sees nothing. They haven’t scrambled the regiment, and that is never a good sign.

Stone does take a moment to admire the sky at this altitude.

He wonders if the doctor has ever had his breath taken away by things like this. For all his intelligence and general enmity towards everything with a pulse, there must be some sense of wonder in him that extends past robotics and artificial intelligence.

It’s a clear night, with a smattering of stars stretching on for what seems like an eternity. The horizon is but a faint, dark blue line that glimmers before being swallowed up by dark earth. The world below sparkles with artificial starlight, the proof of life barely visible from where he sits.

_They’re bombs, Agent Stone. Hydrogen and helium bombs burning up until it’s their time to go boom. Nothing interesting._

Stone sighs, sounding forlorn to his own ears.

Movement down below catches his eye, and he straightens up at the sight of a blue stream that darts away at incredible speed. He never thought about how fast Sonic could actually go, the doctor having given a rough estimate during the Type 1’s enhancement procedures, and seeing it now, Stone can somewhat understand the doctor’s obsession to learn everything he could from it.

Spreading his feet apart and firmly grasping the wheel, he sucks in a large breath before letting it all out, emptying his lungs as much as he can or else risk them rupturing. With a tap to the screen, the flyer begins to hum as the red hazard lights begin to glow blue, the words Nik 3 flashing to life. Stone has no time to process what that means before the world goes black—

—before coming back into focus four seconds later, albeit blurry around the edges. Stone focuses on taking small, even breaths as his hands tighten on the wheel. He should have at least loosened his tie before pressing anything.

At the one-minute mark, he can minutely shift in his seat, the tail end of Sonic’s trail in sight. He follows it with relative ease, not quite able to catch up, but it’s just enough to lead him to their makeshift base.

It takes all of six minutes to reach Oregon, and Stone’s laugh is more than a little unhinged when he prepares the touchdown sequence. The adrenaline is back full-force and his eyes see bursts of light dancing around the cockpit, and maybe he needs more oxygen, he doesn’t know, but a part of him just wants to aim the flyer skyward and see just how far it can actually go, how well the life support system is designed. This is Robotnik’s creation, after all. He’s sure it can blast straight through the stratosphere and right into Earth’s orbit without a hitch.

He lets go of the wheel and swallows large gulps of air, waiting out the full-body shaking as the flyer descends at a respectable pace. Stone is mostly put-together by the time he reaches terra firma, the flyer still hovering a good five feet off the ground when his watch finally beeps to life with a signal. He immediately inputs his coordinates, his surroundings nothing but pine trees. Not a second later, there’s a tapping on the canopy glass.

Stone has it retract, and the smell of fresh air is a welcome change to the artificial kind circulating in the cockpit.

Sonic stands on the hood, hands on his waist and foot tapping impatiently. “Even Eggman flew faster than that,” he says, jumping into the ship. “Wow, roomy. Definitely bigger than the last one.” Stone is about to tell him to not touch anything before he speaks again. “They’re on their way so you might, uh, want to, you know, get rid of the gun.”

“Right,” Stone mutters, shaking out his arms to get the circulation going again before removing the Benelli and stashing it under the seat.

“Hey, listen. I just wanted to say that you totally rocked it tonight. Like, the way you kicked that one guy real good, and then punched the other guy and went like—” he karate chops the air “—and did that super complicated—” he spins on his head before finishing in a pose Stone is pretty certain would break his back were he to attempt it “—and yeah. Move over, Keanu. There’s a new Boogeyman in town!”

“You did good, too,” Stone offers, and is taken aback by the look of shock on Sonic’s face. “What? What is it?”

“You really mean that?”

“ _No word is ever wasted,_ ” Stone says, nodding solemnly before cracking a smile.

Sonic’s jaw drops, eyes wide, before jumping up with a whooping shout. “That’s not how the quote goes but you’ve totally watched it! Oh, _man_ , you’re just—so _cool_.” Rubbing at his cheeks, he shakes his head. “Okay, okay, but I do have one huge favor to ask you if that’s totally okay with you.” He doesn’t give Stone enough time to speak. “You know how, back at the base, I kinda said some not-okay words that Pretzel Lady would totally ground me for until the day my quills grow gray? Yeeaah… can we not tell anyone about that? Great, thanks! Good talk.”

Stone rolls his eyes and leaves it at that. What teenager doesn’t cuss up a storm, anyway? He knows _he_ most certainly did.

It isn’t long before Tom, Maddie, and Tails arrive at the small clearing, the jeep’s headlights alerting Stone seconds after he gets the message from Tails. They all hop out with a flurry of excited clamoring, singing Stone enough praises to make his neck warm under the collar of his shirt as he climbs down to greet them.

He winces once he’s standing on two feet, the pain in his side momentarily becoming unbearable, forcing him to lean back against the flyer with a grunt. Maddie’s next to him in an instant, Tom throwing her a first aid kit from the jeep.

“No, no, I got it,” Stone protests, but his attempt at grabbing the kit is met by a swat.

“Hold still,” Maddie says, helping him out of his jacket. She reaches for his shirt then immediately lets go of it, looking down at her drenched hands. “Tails? Why don’t you and Sonic get the grid ready?”

Tails grabs Sonic by the arm and hauls them towards the jeep, where Stone can see them pull back a tarp and gather large spools of copper.

“Talk to me, Stone. Any lightheadedness, nausea, cold sweat?” Maddie brings his attention back to her, and he watches her work her magic with the limited resources of a first aid kit. She cleans out the wound with a water bottle Tom hands to her, then grabs a needle.

“I’m fine,” he says – clearly not fine – plucking the gauze out of Tom’s hands. “Stitching it up will take too long.” He unravels it, holding the end of it exactly two inches left of the incision and handing Tom the rest of the roll in a silent request for help. “I’ll get it taken care of the moment we get back.”

Maddie squints her eyes at him and then grabs a pill bottle from the kit, as Tom gets to dressing the wound. “Take two of these. For the pain.”

It takes all of five minutes to get him as functional as he can be, bruised and bloodied and fatigued. While taking on an entire base by himself is possible, it is ill advised when there is a phase two lined up right after. At the very least, this time, he knows for a fact that the doctor will be at the end of a highway of mortal peril. This time, Stone knows there’s a goal worth dying for.

He is given a bottle of water to rinse his hands and another to drink, sucking up how painful it actually is to swallow, and thanking Maddie for her medical expertise. Even if it is specifically intended for animals.

Straightening up, Stone fixes his suit to the point where it almost looks presentable, if not for the holes and the blood stains. Tom helps him back into his jacket, but not before adjusting his shoulder holsters.

It’s an eerily vulnerable moment, allowing these people to tend to him when he would have otherwise marched on to the best of his abilities. He wouldn’t have collapsed had the wound not been tended to—it may have slowed him down, but nothing too dramatic until his mission was complete. Instead, he sits in a daze, manhandled left and right. Because, just this once, for the first time in three years, Stone doesn’t want to be reckless. He can’t afford to be.

“Should I be worried this all went without a hitch? Despite the… you know,” Tom says, gesturing at Stone’s midriff. “How long till they come after us?”

“Hard to say.” Stone climbs back into the flyer, keenly aware of the sluggishness of his movements. No one mentions it. Tom throws yet another first aid kit at him, and he stores it alongside the gun before retaking his place in the pilot seat. “They definitely didn’t use most of their weapons. If any, at all.”

Tom approaches the flyer, freshly cleaned hands in his pockets, and looks it over with mild disdain. “Never thought I’d see this thing again.”

“It’s a different model,” Stone says, leaning over the dash to look down at him, biting back a wince. “Sleeker, bigger on the inside, no doubt deadlier.”

“Yeah, yeah. As if the first one didn’t have enough death lasers on it.”

Their attention is caught by whooping and hollering coming from the tree line, and Stone waves at a flying Tails that touches down by Maddie’s feet. “Is it ready?”

“It sure is,” Tails announces, giving Maddie something too small for Stone to see at this distance. “Remember, this is just a prototype and I technically haven’t tested it yet, but if my calculations are correct, it ought to work.”

“And if it doesn’t?” Stone asks.

“Then Eggman is stuck in Mushroomville until we can get Sonic’s rings back, or, more immediately, you’ll be electrocuted while crossing the threshold… But no need to worry about it, I’m sure it’ll work.”

Stone nods his head. “Alright.”

Tom tosses him two more water bottles and a handful of granola bars, before stepping clear out of the way with a salute. “Break a leg, Agent.”

Maddie joins him, wrapping her arms around Tom’s waist and nodding at Stone with a muted smile. “Go get him.”

Sonic dashes around the trees per Tails’ instruction, finishing up the last touches to their garage science project.

“I was able to triangulate the precise location to the planet, but I wasn’t able to locate any sign of life on it. That doesn’t mean the worst, however! The fungi emit an energy signal similar to that of carbon-based lifeforms, so you could say they’re just cloaking anyone who might be on the planet’s surface.” Tails taps away at the machine in his hand. “With Sonic’s quill, we have about two hours’ worth of power.”

“How big is this planet?”

“ _Big_ , so you’re going to have to be fast. Breathable atmosphere, gravitational pull roughly about three times that of Earth, and that’s all I have.”

“That’s all I need,” Stone says, sitting back and gripping the wheel once more. “Ready whenever you are, Tails.”

Nothing happens for a short moment, but then the clearing lights up enough to be blinding. 

Stone briefly looks away when lightning surges along the cable grid that has been securely fastened to trees in a square shape. It loops faster and faster until static materializes within its confines, creating a shimmering silver sheen that warps and shifts like rippling water. 

On the other side of the portal: a lilac sky and a forest of mushrooms.

“Two hours,” Tails reminds him, stepping clear of the flyer and the interplanetary gate he has just opened through his work of genius alone. “Good luck.”

Squashing down the unsettled turning of his stomach, Stone closes the canopy and eases the flyer forward, holding his breath when its nose meets the thin fabric of energy that separates two worlds.

He exhales with a sharp laugh when it glides right through, unharmed.

His hands tremble on the wheel, either due to nerves or excitement, or both, he isn’t entirely certain. He looks all around him once he fully clears the gate, as if trying to convince his logically thinking brain that, yes, he is on an alien planet. An actual alien planet. A planet that is not the one he was born in.

“How’s this for a change in scenery?”

It’s been one hell of a week.

He lowers the flyer until he’s skimming the topper most layer of mushrooms, looking down in hopes of seeing anything, but all he’s met with is even more, smaller fungi. They stand like ancient trees, undisturbed for however long they have existed. The air itself seems to have a brownish tint to it, but it just looks like the handy work of the suns – all three of them, one eclipsed by some other stellar object – as they hover high in the lilac sky.

Getting closer still, Stone can see hints of greenery and the occasional burst of color, indicating the presence of flora. And where there are plants, and mushrooms this big, there is moisture.

Stone continues to fly at a decent speed, searching for any water source that may tip him off to what he’s looking for. As far as he can see, there are no oceans, no lakes big enough to be spotted through the dense canopies below him. The glass does gather condensation on the outside, but Stone spots no clouds in the expansive sky.

An intoxicating mixture of excitement and dread simmers in his gut as he continues his search, flipping through every possible system the console has to offer. 

All life form scans return negative.

_He must be alive. He has to be._

For all the death and destruction that has defined Stone’s life, he cannot let the doctor’s name be added to his list. He may not have held the barrel of a gun to the underside of his chin, but Stone had simply walked away when the doctor placed himself immediately in the line of fire. He should have fought him. He should have argued, tried harder to make the man see reason instead of taking his expulsion from the doctor’s service with a shrug and depressing acceptance.

Agent Stone should have done his job when it most mattered.

But there is no point in licking his wounds, now. He’s on the clock, a very limited one, and he doesn’t intend on messing up again.

If he does, then he will simply stay on this side of the gate. Whether or not the others will try to find him, he does not care, but he will live with the disastrous aftermath of his failures until the very end. Besides, an alien planet is, by far, more exciting than retiring to Green Hills, Montana.

But that might just be the meds Maddie gave him talking, considering he doesn’t feel the least bit hindered by any stab wounds in immediate need of stitches. Tom did an adequate job at bandaging it up tight enough to keep him from bleeding out. For now.

An hour and ten minutes in, Stone accelerates, flying lower. 

Still, no sign of life.

“There is no way you let yourself get beat by this, Doctor,” Stone says, retracting the canopy and standing up to get a better look below, as if his eyes were more reliable than the sensitive scanners designed by the most brilliant of minds. The flyer tips but quickly recalibrates to take his weight into consideration, evening out as it continues the trajectory Stone input based on vegetation growth.

The air smells pungent and sour, unpleasant to the nose and Stone briefly coughs, but doesn’t let that deter him.

“Agent Stone is the smartest man alive!” he shouts down. He isn’t expecting an answer. “Like hay in a needlestack, huh.”

Letting himself fall back into the chair, Stone sighs with wretched defeat. He leans into the headrest and stares openly at the trinary stars until their pattern is ingrained in his retinas. 

Very rarely has he felt grief like this, hopelessness digging a pit in his chest and making itself right at home. When he’d first learned of the doctor’s fate, he had felt enraged and anguished, but there had been a sliver of hope to push him through all of this madness. He has sided with the enemy, forsaken a lifetime’s worth of training and reprogramming, became ‘one of the boys’ just for the sake of bringing the doctor back.

All he has to show for it is a couple of new scars, and the ability to withstand inhuman amounts of force at speeds that far surpass that of sound.

Eyes shut, Stone lets the flyer continue on its path as he listens for any pings from the scanners. Nothing changes, and he can feel the dangerous fingers of sleep soothingly tugging at his temples. If he succumbs, the portal will close, and that will be that. Nothing he can do about it then. He’ll simply land the flyer and look for Robotnik on foot, create maps of the areas as he goes, live off eating mushrooms until the wrong one puts him down for good.

Stone shakes his head free of those thoughts. 

He’s losing it.

So much so, that he can swear his nose picks up a vaguely familiar smell: the aftermath of a spark, the rancid lingering that burns the hairs in his nose. A campsite on the shore of Lake Eerie as he sits on the wrong side of the pit, the wind burning his face and nostrils, making it difficult to breathe. The smell of a short-circuiting machine before he comes in with a red canister to put it out. The smell of a freshly unloaded clip. The cloud of settling rubble.

Stone opens his eyes, confused. 

It smells like fire.

_It smells like fire, you bumbling troglodyte!_

He shoots up from the pilot seat fast enough to nearly fall right off the ship. He whips his head every which way and, there, just outside of a small clearing of iridescent mushrooms, a pillar of smoke. 

Rising with it is the faintest glimmer of hope, and that is all Agent Stone needs.


	8. Bonnie and Clyde

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Now I'm running away my dear_   
>  _From myself and the truth I fear_   
> 
> 
>     — **Without You** , Avicii/Sandro Cavazza

Stone touches down on a stable looking mushroom cap a few feet away from where the remnants of a fire have died down to a kindle. 

He exits the flyer and his knees immediately buckle under the weight of a different gravity, forcing him to lean against the machine for support. It reminds him of walking out of Lake Balkhash in the dead of winter after being held under its surface on and off for a good hour, soaked to the bone and seconds away from hypothermia. Only, this time, he feels much worse.

Stone does a handful of squats in hopes that it will help. It doesn’t and he ends up feeling more winded than he already was. Regardless, he’s able to walk, albeit slow and clumsy.

Of all the things he’s trained for throughout his life, he’d never thought he’d appreciate some sort of astronaut course.

The humidity is excruciating, and Stone finds himself sweating a small river down his back. He removes his jacket and drapes it over his shoulder as he begins the short yet agonizing trek towards the fire, taking frequent breaks and wishing he had brought one of the water bottles with him.

Matters get even more complicated when jumping from one mushroom to another becomes the only viable way forward.

When Stone finally reaches the location, all there is to it is a relatively basic assortment of sticks and moss, all of it singed. 

Could have been lightning, or heat from the suns while at their zenith. Some sort of lensing effect created by the dense atmosphere.

Stone clenches his jaw. 

_No._

“Doctor!” he calls out, holding up his hands as a makeshift megaphone. “Doctor Robotnik!” He gets no answer and his heart sinks further into his stomach. His hands tremble as he grips the edge of the cap he’s on, kneeling over the edge to get a better look at the layer underneath. It’s the easiest way to continue, and the doctor is a man to work smarter, not harder.

He’s able to lower himself, bending his knees to better absorb the impact of the short landing. He drops the jacket on accident but hardly registers it, leaving it behind.

“I know you’re alive, you egotistical bastard!” Stone yells, his voice cracking near the end. “For once in your damn life stop playing hard to get.” He tightens his fists by his side, aiming to kick a rock near his foot out of sheer frustration alone. 

Stone pauses, though, considering whether or not it’s worth the effort to either break his toes or expend more energy than he can risk, when he notices peculiar features that can no way be natural on said rock.

Kneeling next to it, he pokes a finger into what’s clearly a carved eye socket. Definitely a face, and it was definitely made by intentional design.

“Ah, Agent Stone! How nice of you to finally join me.”

Stone nearly startles clear off the edge of the mushroom.

He whips around, heart thundering deep within his ears as it threatens to exit through his throat. 

A cold rush surges inside of him, leaves a trail of goosebumps in its wake: a sensation that brutally contrasts the sudden burning in his eyes. 

Chest tight and fingers slack, Stone breathes out a shaky laugh.

“It’s nice to see you, Doctor,” he says, but the words drown themselves amidst his quivering vocal cords.

The man before him hardly resembles Robotnik. Had it not been for the red flight suit, now tattered beyond any hope for repair, Stone would have barely recognized him. Head fully shaved and his mustache grown out to look like something belonging to a cartoon character, the doctor is miles away from looking like his sleek self. Even his voice is different—deeper, almost gravelly. Either disuse or a side effect of inhaling the planet’s air.

But _it doesn’t matter_.

Because he’s alive, and he’s standing right in front of Stone.

Robotnik, however, doesn’t seem to get it. 

“It looks like juicing the agaricus cecilinik was a bad choice. While its high caloric intake is beneficial to maintaining glucose and cholesterol levels optimized, it may have contained traces of psilocybin. In summary: red spots equal trippy.”

“Doctor,” Stone tries again, slowly approaching him with his hands held out where he can clearly see them. “It’s me.” 

Robotnik sidesteps him, bending down to grab the carved rock.

“I know exactly who you are, you seductive siren. But – alas! You can’t fool me this time. Your spores no longer have any hold over my perfectly clear mind.” Robotnik adjusts the makeshift strap of the satchel stuffed with what appears to be scrap metal. “Now, look away while I _egg-secute_ my flawless plan.” He breaks out into a bout of manic laughter before it devolves into a coughing fit, but the doctor shakes it off with a twisted grin and marches down to the neighboring mushroom.

Stone stands dumbstruck, jaw slack as he steadies himself. Now is not the time to be overtaken by the writhing mess of emotions threatening to choke the life right out of him. “Doctor, listen to me. We don’t have enough time.”

“We have all the time in the world, _Agent Ghost!_ No Netflix, no wi-fi, no unlimited pasta bowls.”

“No, we don’t. Dammit, snap out of it, Robotnik. It’s _me._ It’s Stone.”

“Always _groveling_ for my attention. Unbefitting. Pathetic. But I guess it’s to be expected. Not even your elite sense of stoicism is enough to withstand my appeal.”

Out of a sense of urgency, Stone violates the one rule Robotnik has never allowed him to break: the agent reaches out and grabs him by the shoulder, digging his fingers in, _hard_ , and forcing the doctor to turn around and face him. 

“I don’t work for you anymore, remember? You fired me; therefore, I don’t have to follow your rules. Right now it is in your best interest, Doctor, that you listen very carefully to what I have to say.”

Robotnik’s mouth hangs open, staring down at the hand on his shoulder before smacking it away with a feral twist to his mouth. 

He closes the distance between them with a snarl, towering over Stone with a hand hovering just inches from his throat. “Talk back again, Stone, and I’ll make sure you—” Robotnik’s head twitches halfway through the threat, eyebrows pinching, and takes a hesitant step back.

Stone watches him remove his goggles, resting them high on his forehead. 

The doctor’s eyes squint, then widen, then squint again. “Agent Stone?”

“Yes, Doctor,” the agent says, straightening up just a little and offering a small smile he hopes doesn’t come off as heartbroken as he feels.

Robotnik approaches him again, this time carefully, and bluntly runs one of his gloved hands against Stone’s bearded cheek. He holds up his other hand and scans him with his wrist device, and whatever data it seems to collect is enough to get the doctor to reassess his surroundings.

“Great Scott! You came for me.”

“As soon as I could,” Stone says, unable to keep himself from leaning into the unexpected touch. It’s _electric_ , more intoxicating than any specimen he could come across on this alien planet.

The doctor stares at the point of contact, face transfixed despite the utter shock and disbelief in the shape of his eyes. To both of their surprise, he brings up his other hand to rest on the other side of the agent’s face, cradling it with almost tender befuddlement.

Stone crumbles. 

He reaches up and clings to Robotnik’s forearms, wordlessly begging the man not to pull away. Not yet. Time is counting down, but after three years of missing him with every wretched fiber of his being, he can live with squandering a couple of stolen moments.

“You’re alive,” Stone says in a rush, a laugh bubbling in his chest.

“Of course I am. What kind of a genius do you take me for?”

“A wonderfully resourceful one.”

Robotnik clears his throat and pulls back, resting his hands on his hips as he looks around him. “Not a hallucination,” he mutters to himself, turning away from Stone and then facing him again. “No use. Useless! Waste of resources. I didn’t _need_ you to rescue me, Agent. In fact, I had every intention of making it home by the end of the year! Granted, initially I was aiming for Christmas, but – obviously – fungi offer very little in the field of quantum engineering. My creativity took a blow, Agent Stone, a dull one, but it only put me a mere week behind schedule.”

Stone sighs, unable to school in the smile that continues to warm his face. “Three years,” he says with soft disbelief, thinking that, all things considered, Robotnik doesn’t look to be doing as bad as he thought he would be. No missing limbs or other life-threatening wounds. A little more… unhinged than his usual self, muttering animatedly under his breath as he paces, but nothing overly alarming.

Robotnik does a double-take and runs a hand over his bald head. “What are you rambling about over there?”

“It’s just, I can’t believe it’s really been three years.”

“Three years since what, exactly?”

Stone pauses. “Three years since you’ve been gone.”

“Wrong,” Robotnik barks, holding up his wrist device and eyeing Stone suspiciously. “One-hundred and twenty-seven days, six hours, and twelve minutes.” He stalks into Stone’s personal space, inspecting his face again. “I kept logs. Kept track. You’re wrong or you're lying, so which one is it? Hyper-realistic hallucination. Ah, psilocybin. Not enough color.”

“I can guarantee you, I’m real,” Stone says, rubbing his hands across his own face with mild frustration. “You’ve been gone for three whole years.”

“Three years. Three. Years.” The doctor wags his index finger with a laugh, before sobering up and jamming it into Stone’s chest. “THEN WHY THE HELL DIDN’T YOU COME GET ME SOONER?”

Staring down at the finger, Stone shakes his head. “A week. That’s how long ago I learned about what happened to you.”

Cogs and gears grind and click behind Robotnik’s eyes, piecing together a picture. “One thousand and ninety-five days, approximately, to one-hundred and twenty-seven—that’s—hm. Interesting. Temporal displacement? No, no, yes, maybe. Distinct gravitational pulls could indicate a supermassive object within orbital range—”

“Doctor—”

“You mean to tell me you _stayed fired_?”

Like riding a bike. “From your service, yes. Red tape was impossible to cut through. I kept trying to reach you and got demoted by the agency, instead.”

“Demoted,” Robotnik repeats the word as if personally offended.

“To a desk job.”

“Ah, yes. Nice to see I’m not the only person who’s _LOST THEIR MIND._ Which I haven’t.” He spins on his heel and throws up his hands in exasperation. “Sniveling idiots. Neanderthals. Good-for-nothing suits with guns. How _dare_ they!”

The doctor spews half a dozen curse words per second, and all Stone does is bask in the theatrics for as long as he possibly can. But they will have to wait until this is all over before any further sentimentalities can be expressed.

“Doctor, we need to leave. We don’t have much time before the gate closes.”

Robotnik stops mid-word, sharply turning his head towards Stone. “How _did_ you get here?”

“I had some help.”

“Obviously. Despite your talents you’re not exactly what I’d call a revolutionary engineer capable of pushing the boundaries of known science.” He stops again. “Three years isn’t enough time for technology this primitive to advance to this level of sophistication. No, no, something else—”

Treading ground far more fragile than eggshells, Stone gives him the shortest explanation he can come up with on the spot. “An anthropomorphic fox created a portal that potentially uses the same type of energy as the quill. He was also able to locate this planet with minimal effort.”

“An anthropomorphic fox.”

“He may be from the same home world as Sonic. I didn’t think to ask.”

“Of course you didn’t think.” Robotnik’s unamused expression does not change. “Sonic?”

“Oh. The blue hedgehog.”

They both stand there, staring at each other with varying degrees of emotions clearly painted on their faces.

“I knew that. Anything else you would like to add, Agent Stone?”

“Actually—” Stone starts, amused at how Robotnik shuts his eyes, almost robotically, and sighs irritably. “In a government sanctioned move, the military is moving forward with their plans of utilizing your technology to exploit resources from other planets.”

“Stupid plan. They can’t use my robots.”

“They reverse engineered them.”

Robotnik’s back goes straight so violently Stone can almost hear it crack. His face twists into a storm that promises nothing but nation-flattening destruction and merciless retribution.

“They _what_? What have they done to my babies? The sheer, dull-witted _audacity_ —” He sucks in a breath that nearly knocks him over. “You didn’t initiate the self-destruct—no, you didn’t. You didn’t know. Never aware of your damn surroundings, Stone—” The doctor trails off until his words become a string of mumbled sounds. “You! The state of your clothing tells me you haven’t been on this planet too long and were somehow able to locate me in what looks to be, oh, say, an hour, two, tops. You haven’t been searching on foot.”

Stone brandishes a smile that leaves Robotnik speechless. Not for any emotional reason, but solely because it confirms the doctor’s speculation.

“Take me to her,” Robotnik says, breathless.

They hurry back with the doctor refusing any sort of aid from Stone, medical or otherwise. 

The man moves like he’s unbothered by his own multiplied weight and the impact it makes on his body. Robotnik climbs and leaps, muttering to himself and the rock he refuses to let go of. He does pass it to Stone once the flyer comes into view, and suddenly it’s all the doctor has eyes for.

“My beautiful baby girl!” Robotnik rushes to it, placing both hands on the polished surface before flopping the top half of himself on it. “At least you were taken good care of. Look at you, in perfect flying condition, just how I made you.”

Fondness tugs at Stone’s gut, alongside the bitter memory of how all of this came to pass. “She performed admirably, Doctor.”

“And here you were, _doubting_ me.” Robotnik straightens up, stroking the flyer as if it were a child he’s been reunited with after so long. “Alright, Agent. I’m assuming that head of yours devised some sort of plan that’ll correct the misdeeds of these miscreants our American taxpayers call a military.”

“You assume correctly. As always.”

“Does this plan involve explosions?”

Stone nods. “Plenty.”

Robotnik rubs his hands together in delight. “Excellent. I’ll take the wheel. But first things first.” He removes the satchel from his back and pulls out a cylindrical container roughly the size of his forearm and tosses it to Stone. He tightly closes the satchel back up, but not before Stone catches a glimpse of the original quill amidst the mess. “Can’t have you go out in a blaze of glory dressed like that. Improper work attire.”

“I don’t think we have enough time for this,” Stone protests, looking down at the cylinder with a frown.

“We won’t if you keep dallying. Get on it!”

With Robotnik’s back to him, Stone does as he’s told. Fifteen minutes on the clock, and he sheds his clothing as quickly as humanly possible—mindful of the bandages—before fiddling with the metal container. It pops open to reveal a bundle of black fabric, decompressing once Stone pulls it out. 

He slips into the flight suit with only minimal amounts of difficulty, and wonders if it was initially meant to be his.

“Are you decent?”

“As I can possibly be,” Stone says, zipping it up to his neck and tucking the titanium tag under the smooth fold on the collar. “How do I look?” He holds out his arms to show himself off, feeling vaguely ridiculous yet elated.

Robotnik looks him over, his mustache shifting as he ponders how to answer. “Adequate. Mildly debonair, but that’s mostly due to my brilliant fashion sense. Don’t ruin it. It’s my spare.”

Stone debates contesting the statement considering the suit is perfectly tailored to fit the agent’s dimensions rather than the doctor’s, but ultimately decides against it. Knowing that Robotnik had flight suits made for both of them, Stone’s own in an inverted color scheme to his own, says more than enough.

The doctor chucks the satchel then follows it into the flyer, making sure to run his hands over every surface, cooing as he sits in the pilot’s seat and his wrist device synchronizes to the machine without input from him. He curiously taps on the glass containing Sonic’s quill but doesn’t address it. “Have you ever seen such a supple design, Stone?”

“I haven’t,” Stone says, hopping onto a wing and standing there, looking into the flyer while wondering why he didn’t consider the possibility of being unable to fit two people into such a small space. “Although.”

“Don’t worry your pretty little head.” Robotnik winks at him. “Side passenger accessory: engage.” With a hum and a whir, the pilot seat extends horizontally. It’s not a full second seat, but it’s enough space to fit another body with relative safety. “Come on now. We don’t want to keep our friends waiting.”

Stone maneuvers himself across the cramped interior—accidentally kicking the doctor in the process—and awkwardly plops down on the passenger seat, shimmying to better accommodate his frame. 

He looks up at Robotnik, who is in turn leaning over and looking at the flyer’s immediate surroundings as if searching for something. He straightens up a couple of seconds later, rolling his shoulders and shaking out his hands, jaw set. “What stays behind, stays behind,” he says.

“Ten minutes on the clock,” Stone urges. “It would take—”

“No time at all to reach said portal.” The doctor rhythmically taps the quill’s container before stopping abruptly, cocking his head to the side. “One thousand and ninety-five days to one-hundred and twenty-seven. Agent Stone, did this anthropomorphic fox take into consideration the possibility of external forces asserting changes to the estimated time frame?”

“It’s very likely he did.”

“How certain are you?”

Stone, once more, picks his words carefully. “He’s pretty smart for his species.”

Robotnik stares off for a moment, before leaning back with a measured exhale. “I hope you’re right, for both our sakes.”

“We’re still under the two-hour mark.”

“Gravitational differences are one thing. Sprinkle some temporal dissonance into the mix and your two hours have been shortened to twenty seconds a galaxy cluster away.” Robotnik looks skyward and Stone follows his line of sight, the trinary stars in an entirely different position from where they were when he first arrived.

“The planet’s trapped in an accretion disk,” Stone says, awed by the fact.

“A _what_?” Robotnik says, snapping his head towards him with a scowl. “No, it’s not. If it were, there’d be no planet.” He fiddles with the console, refusing to look at Stone because the agent is _right_. “We’re within the area of effect of an accretion disk. There’s a difference. I didn’t know the government trained their agents in basic astrophysics.”

“They don’t. Saw it in a movie once.” If Stone sounds a little smug, the doctor doesn’t mention it. “Doesn’t change the fact that I’m absolutely certain Tails took that into account.”

“That’s a dumb name,” Robotnik grumbles.

Pulling up, the flyer briefly tilts before recalibrating for the added weight.

They coast above the never-ending forest of mushrooms and Stone finds that he can breathe. With the doctor safely by his side, as malnourished and significantly more manic than he had been three years ago—or four months ago, depending on who’s asked—Stone figures it will be much easier to accept whatever outcome the situation might lead to.

In the meantime, they’re sitting close enough to feel the heat radiating off of each other. A first that may be a last as they dive headfirst into a fray neither of them are in no condition to fight in. Stone has been pushing his luck on slim odds for the past week and he isn’t sure how much more time he can possibly borrow.

He might as well.

“Your suit’s in tatters,” Stone says.

“I have in fact been stranded on a deserted alien planet for what you claim has been years. My lack of a human assistant made it difficult to have it sent to the dry cleaners.”

“You could have worn your spare,” he says, making sure to keep his voice as even as possible to not give himself away.

“I was saving it for this very occasion.”

“Your rescue?”

“For when you’d fly with me.”

Stone’s mouth falls open, blindsided by the candidness. 

“You fired me.”

Robotnik banks left then keeps the flyer steady, before taking his hands off the wheel and resting them on his lap. He’s quiet for a long moment. 

“Agent Stone, you tend to surpass any expectation I ever have of you. You can almost say you keep me on my toes, a welcome change to the brainless suits that drone away outside the lab.” The doctor scratches at his mustache then clears his throat. The clenching and unclenching of his fists serve as a tell-tale sign that he’s formulating something in that mind of his. “If there is anything you would like to say, as a… _colleague_ …rather than my assigned agent-slash-assistant, now’s your chance.” 

Stone faces away from him. Of course Robotnik would catch on. “As a colleague.”

“Or any other label you think yourself worthy of.”

“Colleague is fine,” Stone says. “For now.”

Robotnik looks down at him before turning his attention back to the console, and starts talking before Stone gets the chance to. “I ran the numbers long before you ran yours. I knew the speed wouldn’t kill me, but I couldn’t rule out that some other variable could. So, I adjusted accordingly.”

Stone furrows his eyebrows, both from the surprise at being offered any sort of explanation, and out of confusion. “There is no way you could have guessed you’d end up on another planet.”

“Prediction based on carefully analyzed data, Stone, not _guesswork_. And no, I didn’t predict this. Something like this, maybe, but I did take into consideration that an event partially out of my control would happen, so I prepared myself for it. The chances of keeping someone other than myself alive during this time was too low for me to justify risking it.”

“If you hadn’t fired me—” Realization smacks Stone across the face, making it bloom hot. “You _knew._ ”

“Before you did, yes.” Robotnik smirks and waves him off. “I know, I know. Impressive of me.”

“No, not impressive. _Stupid_ ,” Stone snaps.

“Stu—Wait a minute—”

“Speaking as a colleague, _Ivo_ , you had no right to take that decision away from me. We had a deal. There are lines we do not cross, and you crossed it, spit on it, rubbed it clean off with the tip of your shoe.” Stone refuses to look at him, anger scorching the top of his ears. “Regardless of what we say or do, our loyalty is built on unspoken trust, whether you want to admit it or not. You don’t get to put yourself in danger, that’s _my_ job. You don’t get to choose when or how I do things outside of the lab without my explicit consent. So stay in your goddamn lane, Doctor. You do your job and I do mine.”

The sheer gall of the man, thinking himself some sort of mechanical god amongst mere mortals, picking and choosing who and what goes where, denying everyone on his board any form of agency just because he can.

The insufferable bastard.

The conniving son of a bitch.

“You could have just _said_ so, Ivo. Instead of just— _Christ_.”

Stone grunts, kicking out a foot in frustration but careful he doesn’t hit anything vital in the process. The sudden movement makes his wounds throb. His hands tremble with resentment, and all he can do is viciously glare at the holographic console in front of him.

“Feel better now?” Robotnik asks.

“No, actually. I don’t.”

“I save you from being exiled to a fungal hellscape and this is how you react.” The doctor scoffs. “You humans and your inability to process the _simplest_ of things.”

Stone nearly sputters but composes himself, gathering all the neat little feelings Robotnik continues to toss recklessly about in the once tidy compartments inside himself. Because, if he doesn’t, odds are he’ll deck him. “Please, stop talking.”

“Do make me, Agent, since it looks like someone set the chatterbox in you loose while I was on my all-expense-paid holiday.”

Crossing his arms over his chest, Stone ignores him.

All they have to do is get through this. Get back to Earth, finish the mission and just maybe Stone will now allow himself to finally move on, knowing that the doctor is safe. “Just get us home.”

“I wholly intend to.” Robotnik replaces his goggles over his eyes and adjusts the holoscreens on the console, plugging in codes and other miscellaneous things Stone doesn’t bother paying attention to. “Now that that’s out of the way. Agent Stone, you are hereby reinstated.”

Stone stiffly nods his head once, but relishes in the way his back muscles seem to melt into the uncomfortable seat. “Good to be back, Doctor.” Stone wonders just how much longer he can continue to whip himself before finally breaking apart at the mercy of the doctor’s hands. “Let’s go blow stuff up.”

Robotnik chuckles. “An agent after my own withered heart.”


	9. Shy of Greatness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Me, I want to think a little bit smarter_   
>  _Said, "I just want to be the best"_   
> 
> 
>     — **The Best** , AWOLNATION

The jeep careens on its left side as Tom jerks the wheel, narrowly avoiding the uprooting of a pine tree and the rain of rock and splintered wood that follows. He guns in, hoping the river in front of them is shallow enough to let them drive through yet wet enough to deter the mechanical nightmare on their tail. 

It isn’t. The machine is unstoppable, and there is only so much gasoline left in the tank.

“Think of something!” he shouts at Maddie sitting in the passenger seat, tossed about despite the seatbelt.

“What do you think I’m doing?!” she yells right back in an attempt to be heard over the deafening cacophony of creaking metal, gunfire, and turbine engines. “Tails?”

“Recalibrating!” Tails says, fidgeting with his device. “We need a clearing big enough to fit a flyer-sized portal. Sonic!”

“I’m on it.” Sonic is gone for all of ten seconds before appearing in the backseat again, grabbing onto Maddie's headrest. “Your thoughts on a lake the size of New York.”

“As long as there are anchoring points for the wire grid, it should work.”

“Are you talking about Crater Lake?” Tom says, jerking the jeep out of the way of an incoming boulder. “The National Park? We’re not gonna make it in time. I don’t even have a park pass!”

“Then you’re going to have to Vin Diesel it,” Sonic says. “In the meantime, I can slow down the antinik,” and he’s gone before anyone can say otherwise.

“I’ll give him a hand. You two keep driving and distract it.” With that, Tails flies off through the back window with the help of his twin tails, blurring off into the night in pursuit of an electric blue stream.

Maddie turns to Tom. “Did you know he could do that?”

Tom laughs dryly, grunting when they’re both jostled about as he hits a rough patch of uneven terrain. “Do we just drive towards the lake?”

A massive beam of orange light crosses in front of them with a loud hum, bullets going off like sparklers and forcing them to duck until the frenzy eases just enough for Tom to swerve the jeep around, towards the main road.

He’s on the road for all of thirty seconds before the machine breaks through the tree line in front of them, its massive form blocking the way forward. With a skyscraper-tall leg on either side, and a third one aimed right at them – along with the turrets mounted on all sides of the cube-shaped pilotless pod powering up – Tom throws the jeep in reverse.

“Nic Cage it,” Maddie says, repeatedly patting his shoulder and pointing at the gap of road between the tripod’s legs. “Now! Go!”

Tom doesn’t hesitate, throwing the jeep back into drive and pushing the pedal as far as it can go. Fists tight on the wheel and eyes on the sparking asphalt, he sends up a prayer for the best possible result. Engaging the emergency brake, the car drifts hard and fast enough to check the spindly metal leg on the right, making the tripod groan and wobble, shooting indiscriminately as Tom regains control of the jeep and speeds off down the road.

Maddie whoops and hollers, excitedly smacking his chest before planting a wet kiss on his cheek. “You did it, babe!”

Tom keeps his foot on the gas, even when the tripod is no longer visible in the rear view mirror. “It’s a jeep. Not a GT 500,” but he laughs with relief, sinking into the seat and reaching over to run a thumb over Maddie’s cheek.

_____________

“With any luck, the gate should open with a potential 0.003% margin of error. So, it will probably open six inches to the left of where the original one did,” Tails rambles on, sitting on a tree branch above Sonic’s head.

“You think Spy Guy found Eggman? Two hours isn’t a lot of time to search a whole planet.”

“I made sure to give him some wiggle room on the time frame. All we can really do is hope he did. I don’t think we can stop that thing before it finds a way to stop us.”

“Nah, I’m not worried. Nothing a well-aimed ball of blue lightning can’t stop.”

“Then why are we hiding?”

“We’re not hiding,” Sonic says, rolling his eyes. “We’re just assessing the situation. Doing some reconnaissance. Waiting for the best moment to take our shot.”

“And that shot is you spin-dashing at it and hoping for the best.”

“It worked on Eggman’s mechs all those years ago. I’m practically a lethal weapon now.”

“Whatever you say, Sonic. Do you think Maddie and Tom will be okay?”

“They’ll be _fine_. They’ve driven through worse.”

“What can possibly be worse than being chased by a military-grade AI with a neon target on their backs?!”

“Two words: Denver, Colorado.”

The tracker in Tails’ hands continues its scan of the area, a bright green dot zooming across the miniature topographical map as a bigger red dot pursues it past the edge of the dark green segment of the map. The bright green dot follows the outline of a black blot smack in the middle, and Tails fiddles with the tracker to adjust the resolution. What he sees makes him gasp.

“What, what is it?”

Tails cranks up the nob at the side, smacking the tracker against the branch when interference momentarily interrupts his satellite connection. Hovering just outside the parameters of the map, dozens of tiny red dots.

“Tails, talk to me.”

“We have company. Lots of it.”

“Are we talking military goons or—”

“No! Antiniks.” He holds out the tracker for Sonic to see. “What are we going to do?”

“Same plan,” Sonic says, counting the dots and giving up once he reaches fifteen. “We, uh, wait, no, that won’t work. We take out the big guy—nope, that won’t either. It’ll take too long to wipe out the little ones, too.”

Tails hops down from the tree, pacing the forest floor as he thinks. “Override the tripod. Use it to communicate with all the other ones!” He stops, shaking his head. “No, that’s silly. We don’t have the time.”

“Oh! Oh, can you infect it with malware? Scramble their signal?”

Tails thoughtfully scratches at his ears, running the probabilities. “You know, that might actually work. Not with malware, but if we could somehow scramble their signal.”

“Thanks. I watch a lot of movies.”

“Got it! Here’s what we’re going to do. We stick to the original plan of Tom and Maddie distracting the tripod, but you’re going to have to set up the grid _and_ activate the gate while I fine-tune and broadcast the radio waves.”

“Sounds easy enough.”

“There is a possibility the other antiniks will swarm you.”

“Leave it to me. You work your magic and I’ll make sure these tin cans stay out of your fur.”

_____________

The pitch black blackness of the night makes it difficult to navigate the narrow road ahead of them. All Tom can do is keep from driving off it when the towering pines thin out to nothing, leaving only the sheer precipice down to Crater Lake on his right, the edge of the road on his left, a homicidal /War of the Worlds-esque\ robot shooting at them from behind, the potential for wandering wildlife ahead, and the gas tank reading less than a third.

He could really use some good news, and it comes in the form of Maddie’s “aha!”

“What? Aha, what?”

“There’s a turn off up ahead,” she says, scrolling her watch. “We have to get that thing away from the rim.”

Tom turns on his blinker and exits the main road, missing the divider by mere inches as he pushes past 80MPH. He keeps going until the road evens out, his ears popping from the drop in altitude. “Would appreciate further instructions right about now,” he says.

“He isn’t—” Maddie pauses and turns to Tom, who stares back at her with wide eyes. “Why’s it so quiet all of a sudden?”

They look behind to see the tripod make its way towards the lake, its metal claws ripping up dirt and vegetation as it goes. Beyond it, along the crater rim, they can both see Sonic setting up the same grid pattern as earlier, only this time it’s significantly smaller.

Tom honks the horn. Maddie lowers the window and leans halfway out of it, shouting and frantically waving her arms, but the tripod ignores them.

“Dammit!” Maddie’s sentiment is shared, if not doubled when a dark cloud flies in to settle across the clear path between them and Sonic. A dark cloud with a faint green glow, caused by dozens of lasers searching the area before honing in on the jeep. “Tom?”

“I know.”

“What are we going to do?”

“First, we stay calm.”

“I am perfectly calm. Can’t you see how calm I am?” Maddie says, whipping her head towards him. “I am the epitome of calmness right now.”

“I can see that, babe. Any way you can share some of that with me?”

The army of cubic drones hover overhead, weapons trained but not firing.

The jeep radio crackles to life, scaring a good two years out of both of them when Tails’ voice comes through, interlaced with a drowned-out radio host’s rambling. “—the gate! Sonic—ready to active—it away! They—attack. I repeat—won’t attack.”

The kitchen timer on the dashboard hit zero over half an hour ago and neither knows what that means for the operation at hand, but Tails’ message is clear enough. 

They have one shot to open that portal.

A sudden spike in static shuts the jeep down, along with the homemade watches on Maddie and Tom’s wrist. It races up their arms like goosebumps, standing their hairs on end and ringing sharply in their ears. The ground shakes, and Tom’s instinct is to grab hold of Maddie when the tripod stops halfway to the crater, glowing a crackling red.

“Get down!”

The electric discharge shatters the windows, and the wave that follows rocks the jeep hard enough to almost knock it onto its side. The car alarm tries to go off but then stops dead with a pathetic squeak. 

All that’s left in its wake is deafening silence.

Before Tom can react, Maddie is rushing out of the jeep. Dozens upon dozens of drones lay scattered on the ground, but a small cluster of them hum back to life with a wobble and a whir, their green lights flashing and readjusting.

“Maddie? Get back in the car,” Tom chases after her, grabbing her arm and yanking her back. “Maddie!”

“I don’t see him,” she says, pushing forward regardless of the drones now aiming directly at them. “I don’t see him!”

What they can see is the faint glow of the electrical grid in the near distance, and the tripod steadily gaining ground towards it. 

Tom tugs at her. “We have to go. Now.”

“We have to activate the gate.”

“What we have to do is find the boys and regroup. If that thing is some sort of EMP weapon, there’s no way we’ll be able to get around it,” Tom urges her, pulling harder. “Let’s go.”

“All sources in one place,” she says, wrenching her arm free. “Failsafe. Tails said Sonic had the device to activate it. We find it, we get those two back. Because right now they’re the only ones with the power to stop that thing.”

“Maddie—”

“It blew up our home!” Her shout rattles him, the rawness in her voice grounding him to the reality that sparked this not-so-grand adventure. “It destroyed everything we worked for and by God, Tom, I don’t care who gets the job done, but I want that thing and everyone responsible for controlling it to pay.”

Tom stands there, trying to ignore the drones about to fire on them in favor of staring at Maddie in all her righteous anger. “I’m assuming you have a plan.”

She nods, tying her hair back. “The quill. Give it to me.”

He does so and then stands back, watching her pop the hood open with the calm of someone who doesn’t have a minimum of seven death lasers trained on her. Tom doesn’t know why they won’t shoot, but his attention is drawn away when the car starts up with a jolt. It revs as Maddie drops the hood.

“No, there’s no way,” he says, watching her get behind the wheel. “That computer’s as good as fried.”

“Impressive what you can do with unlimited energy.”

“That’s, no, that’s _literally_ impossible.”

“Shh, don’t question it and just get in the car.”

Tom hurries into the passenger’s seat, wearily eyeing the drones. “Stating the obvious, but they’re not shoot—” he’s cut off when Maddie slams her foot on the gas, pressing him flush against his seat.

The tripod rapidly approaches, the car pushing speeds it was not designed to withstand as it dings its need for gasoline, but the crackle of energy that powers it tells Tom it won’t be needing it any time soon.

Maddie is about to overtake the tripod when it lifts its forward metal arm and aims it at the small group of pine trees that line the cliff side, the same red wave shimmering to life at the end of its spiky claw. The glow illuminates the whole area, and it’s enough to help Tom spot him.

Sonic lays unmoving against a boulder, and Tom’s heart sinks with dread. He sees it, however: the yellow device still grasped in his hand.

Tom turns to Maddie. “Keep driving. Make sure it follows you,” he says, giving her one more adoring look and waiting for her determined nod before he throws the jeep door open and gets ready to jump.

When he does, he fails to take the speed into consideration. He hits the ground with the force of a freight truck collision, knocking the wind out of him as he rolls to a stop, groaning as he struggles to get up. Clothes torn to shreds, arm and cheek stinging hot, Tom half stumbles, half runs across the dusty side of the road.

He doesn’t watch the spectacle behind him, the humming of a weapon powering for another burst of power or the screeching of tires and the incessant screaming of a car horn. Instead, Tom slides to his bloodied knees when he reaches Sonic, gathering the injured boy into his lap.

“Hey, come on, bud. Wake up.” Tom grabs the device and frantically smashes the button, cradling Sonic’s unconscious body as he turns in time to watch the pine trees begin to glow in the distance.

The jeep swerves out of the way as a laser cuts through the asphalt, aiming almost wildly before stopping and readjusting its aim at the interplanetary gate now opening.

Tom squints as it brightens, the glow becoming a radiant beacon in the otherwise void-like night. 

Through the meshy haze of static he can see a different color sky, but most importantly, Tom sees the machine that may potentially turn the tide.

The glossy white exterior of the flyer briefly catches the shine of the tripod, its black accents contrasting with the red in a way that gives it personality. It is _imposing_ and _menacing_ as it glides from another world and into theirs, with the grace of an expected savior, and one extra passenger in tow.


	10. Public Enemies No. 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _And run for your life_   
>  _The man is back in town_   
> 
> 
>     — **T.N.T.** , AC/DC

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Posting a day earlier because I have a nice, juicy final tomorrow.  
> It's only a _little_ bit bonkers up ahead, I swear.

Robotnik opens the cockpit and stands up, leaning over the dashboard to get a better look at the tripod-like machine that stands five feet away from the gate. He sneers, jabbing his thumb at it as he turns to Stone. “What the hell is _this_? Don’t answer that, I know what it is: a washing machine on legs.” He cackles, tipping the flyer forward enough to bring them face to mechanical face. Robotnik raps his knuckles against the camera lens before flipping it off. “The doctor is _in_.”

The tripod powers up and fires. 

The flyer dodges with ease but the same can’t be said for the gate, or any of the trees lining the crater.

Closing the canopy, Robotnik darts around the pilot seat. “Stone, man the ship. I’ve some upgrades to install before we get down and dirty.”

Stone switches seats, manually adjusting the holographic dash to his liking. 

He swings the flyer around, eyes trained on the tripod as it bumbles on its spindly legs. “I’m detecting multiple EMP charges,” he says, deftly swiping through radar readings. Stone shifts aside when the doctor pops up in front of him, plucking the quill from its port and taking it with him. The flyer’s interior is way too small for two fully-grown men to be shuffling about. “They seem to be centralized five miles west of here.”

Robotnik mutters to himself, but the words are mostly drowned out by the unmistakable sounds of mechanical fiddling. There’s a clank, a curse, a zap, a pleased hum followed by yet another curse, and an _aha!_ “If memory serves, Agent, which it does, you’re perfectly skilled at shooting things.” Robotnik kneels behind the pilot seat and leans into Stone’s space, grinning maniacally as he points at the tripod. “Light ‘em up.”

Flipping up the nondescript cap beside the wheel, Stone pushes the big red button.

The seat beneath him vibrates as the flyer powers up its weapons system, deploying a dozen turrets along its outer shell that charge up to the point of a ringing in his ears. But before he can fire, the flyer dips and rocks violently in the air, throwing Stone for a loop.

Robotnik stands up despite the motion, looking through the canopy shield before aggravatedly turning towards the console. He navigates the maps with increasing anger. “Those good for nothing dung slinging monkeys! Did they honestly think they could mimic my creations?! Recreate my BABIES?!”

Outside, the flyer is surrounded by the black cube drones, each of their lasers fruitlessly firing. It isn’t enough to penetrate the exterior coating, but the flyer begins to overheat, struggling to withstand both the exterior assault and the manual enhancements Robotnik just tweaked into place.

Stone engages the emergency aerial brakes and increases the speed to max throttle, pivoting the flyer 360 degrees before going into a nosedive. Hands steady on the wheel, he does it again, this time flying upside down and recalibrating the weapons system to fire regardless of the mounting pressure in the cabin. The G-force pins him to the seat, but Stone is able to pilot the flyer to glide effortlessly between the tripod’s legs, opening fire on its underbelly.

The tripod goes up in an array of colorful explosions, the creaking metal resonating even inside of the ship. He watches with satisfaction as it stumbles, its legs buckling underneath the unmanned pod’s weight, hitting the ground with a boom.

Stone puts significant distance between them and the raging fire below, scanning the console for any more imminent annoyances. He watches the smaller drones blip out of existence, joining the crumpled machine that won’t be getting up again.

“Agent Stone.” Before he can react, Stone is grabbed by the jaw, head yanked to the side to bring him inches away from Robotnik’s face, his unruly mustache twitching at the proximity he’s created. “Impressive piloting, and such skills deserve to be praised.”

Stone blinks, wide eyed, and tries to nod his head despite the hold the doctor still has on it. “Thank you, Doctor.”

“A reward!”

“I don’t think now’s the time—”

“Let me do the thinking, Stone. I’m way better at it.”

“Yes, of course.”

“Did you just _roll your eyes at me?_ ”

“No.”

“Your tone suggests otherwise.” Robotnik lets go of his jaw. “I take it a back, you’re an awful pilot. Out of my seat.”

Stone does as he’s told, retaking his assigned spot once more with a fondness he can’t quieten.

Leaving the scene below them to be dealt with later, Robotnik turns on the autopilot and sets their destination to the location of the EMP charges. They fly at a reasonable speed, the quill currently using its power to juice up the weaponry. Stone refrains from asking why they’re not using the spare quill Robotnik has with him, which in turn has him wondering if Sonic can just grow those back considering how freely he’s been gifting them since the whole ordeal started.

Do hedgehogs shed?

Stone can’t see the ground below him where he sits, but he can look up the stars once more. With the pain medication beginning to wear off, it becomes disconcertingly difficult to keep his thoughts on track, derailing him into a spiral of sweaty fogginess he tries to rub away from his eyes.

He sits up straighter, rolls his shoulders, _wills_ himself to stay focused.

“You’re injured,” Robotnik says, his voice tight with an emotion Stone can’t pinpoint. “The flight suit is designed to moderate body functionality. Once you take it off, you should let me inspect you. Them. Your wounds.”

“The damage’s been done. If I didn’t bleed out before I got to you, odds are I’ll be fine.” Stone ghosts his fingers over the stab wound on his side, suddenly very aware of every nick and scratch he’s received over the past couple of hours. By all means, he should be incapacitated, but he’s withstood far worse before. He has a mission, and he will not rest until he sees it through.

“Pupil dilation and the pallor of your skin also indicate an untreated condition. I’m betting on a concussion.”

“I’m fine, Doctor. You’re the one that’s been AWOL on an alien planet. How are you holding up?”

Surprisingly, Robotnik doesn’t immediately answer. He seems to be thinking, leaning back and plucking at the frayed edges of his gloves. “My lungs are questionable at best, the resetting of multiple bones may be necessary, and I’d kill for a damn slice of pizza. No mushrooms.”

“You’re home now,” Stone says, refraining from touching him despite the need scorching a hole through his gut. “We’ll get you fixed up and rested and then I’ll whip you up a pizza. Cauliflower crust, light on the marinara, parmesan and smoked gouda, and no mushrooms.”

“No mushrooms.”

“None. Just how you like it.”

Robotnik graces him with an ever-rare genuine smile. “And a latte.”

“With steamed Austrian goat milk.”

“Awfully generous of you, Stone.”

They are quickly approaching their destination, and the uncertainty of what awaits them there doesn’t bother Stone in the slightest, not anymore. The slight wheeze in the doctor’s breathing unsettles him, especially now that he can hear it when all that reverberates around them is the soft beeping of the flyer’s constant running of diagnostics.

Stone’s chest feels heavy as unspoken words hang on the tip of his tongue. 

This past week has rammed down the door to a truth he’s been glossing over for years, stored safely away on one of his many shelves, and he’s been unable to push it back shut. Maybe it’s the adrenaline, the thrill of finally having Robotnik back, that makes Stone want to say—for once—the things he’s thinking. 

Maybe it’s the blood loss. 

All he knows for certain is that everything is messy and speaking up will undoubtedly make things more so. But, up here, with only the stars to look in on them, Stone decides it’s as good a time as ever.

“Doctor—”

“I missed your coffee,” Robotnik blurts out, then freezes, shaking his head. “No, that’s not—I missed your… hm. Agent Stone,” he tries again, clearing his throat and brushing his mustache, “I was plagued with the misfortune of missing your face. Not your face, your service. Oh, give me a BREAK.” The doctor stops his rambling, pinching the bridge of his nose with an exasperated sigh.

Stone laughs despite Robotnik looking like he’s been forced to swallow a knife at gunpoint.

It’s a start.

“I missed you, too.”

Robotnik sniffs. “Those cheap knock-offs must have damaged the life support system. Oxygen levels may be inhibiting proper brain functions.”

Stone smacks a random panel with the side of his fist. “There, all fixed.”

“Excellent. I feel much better.”

“Me, too.”

The overhead sky is interrupted by an ominous shadow blocking out the stars, and Stone recognizes the shape with a sinking feeling. He trusts the durability of the doctor’s creations, but he isn’t sure they’ve been tested against the capabilities of M16s. Especially not against an entire regiment.

A light begins to blink on the console. “We’re being hailed.”

“No need. I already know what they want, and we’re going to give it to them.” Robotnik decreases speed and altitude, allowing their flight to be guided. “Deactivate weapons system.”

The console lights up with dozens of dots, all in tight formation around what registers as an abandoned airfield. Closer to the ground, Stone catches a glimpse of the legion of armored tanks, fighter jets, tripods, and drones—all primed and ready, waiting for their arrival.

“Much better than homecoming,” Robotnik says with a shrug, bringing the flyer down on a patch of grass. “And, would you look at that? They even have gifts!” He brings up a different kind of screen, one that moves in a three-dimensional space. This one shows red ovals. “Predictable. Stone, whatever you do, do not open this cockpit.”

“Understood.”

“Wait for my signal.”

“Your… wait, where are you going?”

Robotnik smacks Stone’s chest in what he assumes is meant to be a gesture of fellowship, before getting up and making towards the back of the flyer. “To give them a show they will never forget,” he says, and the dangerous timbre of the words sends a shiver dancing down Stone’s spine. “Give them hell, Agent.”

Stone watches the doctor slip out of the ship through a small compartment he had no idea existed, and hopes will hold if the need to maneuver at high speed is required now that it’s been open. Especially since it looks like it’s just been cut out with a portable torch. At least Robotnik has the decency to slide the metal piece back into place after he’s crawled his way out.

Never a dull moment.

He does wish the doctor would have filled him in on whatever daredevil plan he has concocted within the span of seconds.

The console goes off again and Stone finally patches it through. A familiar woman’s voice fills the space around him.

“Dr. Robotnik, this is Lieutenant General Rives speaking on behalf of McKay Bay Airbase. I am under the authority of the Commander in Chief, the Army Chief of Staff, the Secretary of Defense, the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Secretary of Homeland Security, and every other goddamn badge under our flag to finally do what needed to be done a long time ago. In accordance with US code 4-2-0, title 1, clause 6.9: any organization, individual, and aiding party with the intention to sabotage, endanger, or threaten any United States property stands on ground of immediate termination.”

Stone takes the pilot seat and buckles up, hands at the ready over the wheel. “You can’t kill someone who doesn’t exist,” he says. Looking at the console, he realizes auxiliary power is being diverted to communications, weapons, and defense shields. He wonders what else Robotnik was able to modify, and marvels at the fact that he was even able to do so much in such a short period of time with barely any resources at his disposal.

“By decree of the aforementioned individuals and their designated branches: Dr. Ivo Robotnik, sole proprietor of Robotnik Labs, and Special Agent A—” a feedback loop momentarily cuts off the feed, “Stone, decommissioned field officer of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, are hereby declared enemies of the state.” The Lieutenant General pauses for dramatic effect. “Use of lethal force has been approved.”

Not the first time, and most likely not the last. He’s had bigger and scarier organizations on his tail before, but he’s never had to think about someone other than himself in life and death situations. Usually, his team knew what to do and how to do it with all their limbs intact. He can’t say the same for the doctor. The man is reckless on so many levels Stone fears him capable of just waltzing right out into the field, arms outspread and welcoming the forces of hell with a maniacal laugh.

“He better not.” He isn’t experienced enough to estimate his accuracy with the built-in turrets.

A long moment slugs on by where no one moves or says anything, but Stone keeps his eyes trained on the Lieutenant General standing amidst her legion. Rives is taller than the average woman, with a propensity to stir the pot whenever anyone makes a remark she doesn’t like. Her patience is as long as her cropped hair, which makes Stone restless at the extended lack of action.

In the distance: searchlights.

Stone takes it as good a sign as any.

He takes off at speeds that leave him struggling for air but deals with it when ground fire begins to chink the exterior. There is no need for complicated maneuvering here, even as jets come in dangerously close. Stone pulls up and back, breaking and hovering, letting the M16s scramble and readjust their course.

It becomes a game of chicken.

While Robotnik may have had a hand in the design process of the military’s newest fighter jets, the doctor knew better than to put all his cards on the table. His flyer is far more aerodynamic, allowing for sharper turns and abrupt dips, making it capable of stunts often written off as hoaxes by those who see blips of light in the night sky.

Stone can feel his pulse ramping up in his neck, the sheer adrenaline forcing him to push the flyer to its limits, and then some. He can do it. He can win. Robotnik can create it, but Stone can master it.

Hopping over a jet, Stone turns the flyer skyward and takes off. 

He flies until the fuselage begins to shake, console lights flashing wildly as the automated voice warns him of life support systems becoming critical. The blackness of the night sky churns darker, stars brighter as he borders the indigo stratosphere with its silver outline. 

The radar reads clear of pursuers, and Stone lets go.

He sits back, short on oxygen, as the flyer begins its rapid descent. 

Ten seconds, he gasps in a mouthful of air and reaches for the wheel again, but rather than the physical object on the dashboard, Stone finds himself holding a pair of holographic joysticks. Shocked at being able to feel them in his grip, he brings one in to inspect it, only to make the flyer whip violently during its free fall. Stone stares at the alternate controllers, and grins.

“Reroute all auxiliary power to manual.”

_Request denied. Autopilot engaged._

“I can fly it!”

_Password required._

“Dammit.”

_Password incorrect._

Stone scoffs, using the newly discovered steering method to ease the flyer back over the base once it’s stable enough to pilot. It resists him, however, attempting to fall back 

Only one missile comes towards him and after a subtle tip to the side, making the shell miss him entirely, they give up on trying to shoot him down.

“You’re a bunch of idiots.” Stone pulls up the holoscreens in search of his own weapons arsenal, but something manages to clip the flyer, sending it spiraling before Stone can get it back under his control.

Through the canopy, Stone catches sight of at least five drones attempting to knock him out of the sky. They’re faster than the others, and with the flyer’s defenses now weakened, it’s easier to feel their heat bleed through layers of super heated metal and shorting electronics.

“Reroute all auxiliary power to—”

_Request denied_ , the AI says before he can finish, and it almost sounds mocking. _Password required._

“Robotnik is a dumbass.”

_Incorrect password._

He groans. “Agent Stone is a dumbass.”

_Incorrect password. Try harder._

The flyer tips as every onboard system begins wailing again, the flashing lights making it harder to think. But it all clicks, within the frame of a second.

_A rainy night, mud on his shoes, ruined paperwork. ‘I apologize, sir—’ An angry Robotnik, a smashed machine. ‘I don’t want some half-baked apology, Agent. Try HARDER!’_

“Zero-three-one-eight-two-zero-one-three.”

_Incorrect password._

“One-eight-zero-three-two-zero-one-three!”

_Rerouting auxiliary power to manual controls._

“Yes!”

The equilibrium feels off, the flyer heavy and clunky as he takes full control of it into his hands, but he’s able to navigate at maximum capabilities. 

He takes hit after hit, rattling him inside the cockpit, but he holds his ground. Stone wires the remaining power towards the defense shields, but that eventually withers away as the console begins to spark.

From his vantage point, he snipes a total of thirty-five drones out of the sky, all the while dodging incoming sideswipes from surprisingly nimble fighter jets.

The flyer jerks again, dropping several hundred feet in a matter of seconds before Stone can divert more power to keep it steady. 

It won’t last much longer, the machine having given all it's got, not having been built for combat, and Stone figures he might as well take her out the best way he can think of, even if that includes him. He only hopes the distraction has given the doctor enough time to execute whatever crazy plan he has up his sleeve.

The com beeps on and Stone pauses his last-minute adjustments for his swan song.

There’s an echo and then silence when everything seems to stop all at once.

_“Ladies and gentlemen, I’d ask for your attention but at this point in time I’m afraid I’ll have to demand it from you.”_ Robotnik’s voice comes through crisp and clear, a smooth lull to it reminiscent of a radio host. _“Quick round of Jeopardy! This song was released in 1975 as part of their international High Voltage album. No? I’ll give you a hint.”_

A single strum of an electric guitar blasts through the flyer, quickly followed by an even wave of drumming. A choir of voices begins to chant to the beat, and recognition sparks in the back of Stone’s head.

He lowers the flyer to ground level when all attention is diverted to the spectacle now developing in front of the world’s most elite military forces.

Robotnik stands in front of a row of haphazardly stacked shipping containers, arms outstretched, and head tipped back. Two spotlights shine down on his disheveled form as he gestures to his left – “Women to the left of me,” – a small army of pristinely white, egg-shaped machines rising to the occasion – “and women to the right,” – as another cluster of machines fall into formation. “Ain’t got no gun,” he sings, “ain’t got no knife.” He straightens up, holding up a finger and giving it a good wag. “Don’t you start no fight.”

Stone watches the carnage that is unleashed around him from the comfort of the pilot seat, canopy now open and uncaring of the sparks and shrapnel that can’t cut through his flight suit.

Robotnik stands amidst the madness, leading his machines like a conductor at the opera, occasionally pausing for a solo on an invisible guitar while the song continues to play through every device capable of doing so.

He jogs up to the Type 2, jumping onto it and dropping onto his back with a flourish. “I’m a wanted man,” he sings, horribly off key, “public enemy number one. Understand?”

Stone lets him have his moment.

Robotnik darts off into the fray again, as officials and troops continue their frantic scramble to get an already chaotic situation under control.

Stone wonders what they were expecting. They pissed off the most dangerous man history has ever hosted on the pages of her book. A man who has been exiled for, technically, three years with nothing but fungi to keep him company and can hack the smallest bit of circuitry in his favor in a world controlled by technology. Technology _he created_. They fight their wars with his weapons and revolutionize global politics and economies with data accrued through his patented methods.

They’ve kicked the hornets’ nest and got a legion of fully armored rhinos instead, running full speed ahead and bloodthirsty for revenge.

Oh well.

He lowers the canopy once Robotnik vanishes behind the shipping containers and readies the flyer for one last hurrah.

He ascends to cruising altitude, safely out of range of the drones dueling to the death. Stone watches their futile attempts of establishing any sort of order, people and machines scurrying about to get in their tanks and their planes and their blacked-out SUVs.

_“Stone.”_

“Doctor.”

_“We may have encountered a slight hiccup in this plan of ours.”_

Stone pinches the bridge of his nose. “Nothing we can’t handle.”

_“Exactly.”_ There’s a brief instance of static before the feed clears. _“They have dozens of them. Tripods. Armored EMP shells.”_

“Shit.” Stone shifts around in the pilot seat, hands clenching the holographic joysticks. The left continues to glitch out. “Going up?”

Robotnik is quiet for a short moment. _“They_ gutted _my machines, Stone. Half of them wouldn’t even respond to me. I’d much rather they meet an explosive end than see whatever is left of them under the control of these fascist pricks.”_

It’s not so much anger as it is sadness that Stone hears weaving in and out of his words. “On your mark, Doctor.”

From behind the shipping containers rises an all-too-familiar machine: an almost exact copy of the ship Stone is piloting. Only this one is much larger and of much sleeker design, with two gravity propellers at its sides. Its jet-black canopy gleams with the shine of polished onyx, consuming the light around it with the intensity of a black hole.

Stone had no idea such a machine existed.

_“It would have been irresponsible of me to not perfect the Flyer prototype. Meet the Type 3. Or, as I like to call it,_ Shadow. _”_

The red stripes that cut down the black wings and revolve around the propellers, which also shed a red glow, almost grant the machine its own edgy aura.

Robotnik takes to the night sky and Stone follows.

_“Invisible to radar, increased life support capabilities for romantic walks along the upper mesosphere, and—best of all—”_ the doctor arms up, the entirety of the flyer coming alive with thousands of miniature fusion rockets deploying from conveniently camouflaged slots, _“enough firepower to put any pack of hyenas back in their rightful place. Agent Stone.”_

“Doctor.”

_“Bombs away.”_

Stone is given no time to try and dissuade the doctor into being more rational about wiping out a military base armed to the teeth with state-of-the-art weaponry capable of blowing a small country off the map. He doesn’t want to.

Initiating the offensive protocols of his Type 2, Stone flies parallel to the doctor.

_“On my signal.”_

Stone makes no comment on the extended amount of time it takes for Robotnik to call it, understanding the weight of what it means to destroy a lifetime’s worth of work. Robotnik built every single one of those machines, devoting endless days with no sleep, dangerous cuts, and equally worrying bruises into what Stone would deem as the doctor’s children.

Every line of code, every motherboard and microchip, every complex bit of circuitry, every incomplete prototype, every blueprint, every evolving AI still running self-diagnostics, every unfinished bit of nano tech—and the doctor is holding it all at the end of an amped up super-weapon.

At the crosshairs controlled by Robotnik’s fingers, is Robotnik himself. An unforgivable act of literal self-destruction.

“Doctor, I can—”

_“I’m perfectly capable,”_ Robotnik says, and the audio is so clear Stone can detect the snarl that accompanies the words. _“Toodle-loo!”_

The night lights up brighter than anything Stone has ever seen, giving the base below everything they’ve got at their disposal.

Stone’s damaged flyer rides the shockwaves of each explosion that obliterates any standing structure and ground-bound machinery for miles. He reroutes whatever is left to the weapons system and blasts the tripod that makes the valiant effort to activate. 

He flies against the outbound energy, pushing the flyer for everything it has, carefully timing his acceleration as the G-force pushes painfully against his chest.

Several feet above him, the Shadow loops as it switches magazines with the ease of turning a page.

The frenzy ends as quickly as it began.

Silence lingers as Stone’s ears ring in the aftermath of their collective actions. 

His hands are shaking as he releases the joysticks, sitting back as he tries to process the amount of power he just brandished, and what he did with it. Revenge doesn’t taste as he expected it to, not when it came at the cost of destroying every bit of Robotnik’s life. 

Even while riding the high of adrenaline, regret slices its metallic claws into Stone and sinks deep enough to grate against bone.

At the very least he hopes, with a jump in his gust neither pleasant nor unpleasant, that Robin, Bennington, Rives, and every other poor excuse of a human being responsible has paid their dues.

“Are you okay?”

The quiet continues until the dust settles and there is nothing but a desolate field beneath him, flattened and gray. A graveyard of metal.

_“I’m fine,”_ Robotnik says. _“That’s one nuisance down, one blue space rat to go.”_

“Wait, Doctor—”

_“None of this would’ve happened if that abomination hadn’t—”_

“Robotnik,” Stone says, firmly, and it’s enough to make the doctor stop talking. “Let’s get you a shower first. Maybe something to eat. And then we’ll focus on what comes next.”

_“But—”_

“Doctor.”

_“Alright, fine.”_ Stone can see him perfectly clear in his mind’s eye: throwing his hands up in exasperation, trying and failing to act nonplussed by the devastation, covering it all up. _“Since you clearly think you’re in charge here—gone for five months and he suddenly thinks he has any say in my affairs. Why not tell me what I should wear while you’re at it?”_

Stone deadpans. “Silk pajamas and bunny slippers,” and then, just to get on his nerves in a different sort of way, “sir.”

_“You’re insufferable, Stone.”_

He agrees with the statement. “Likewise.”

Robotnik makes an amused sound over the com. _“Shall we go home?”_

The question takes him aback, the layers of meaning behind the simple words running deep enough to make Stone ache in a melancholy way. Military compounds, apartments, luxury houses tucked into beautiful mountainsides—it all pales. Home had always been the lab. Now they’re walking targets with no place to lay their weary heads for the night, and Stone sighs tiredly at the knowledge that they’re not the only ones facing this dilemma. 

A muted sense of camaraderie settles in him, and he spares a thought for the Wachowskis.

“Let’s go home, Doctor.” Stone inputs the only coordinates he knows off the top of his head and activates the autopilot function despite the ship’s protests, sitting back in his seat and rubbing at his pained shoulder. “But first, I need to go get my dog.”

_“I always took you to be a cat person.”_

“He’s technically my fake-ex’s dog but I didn’t have the heart to leave him behind.” If silences were physical, Stone is sure that feeling of shoving a fork in a power outlet could have been attributed to it. Surprisingly, the doctor doesn’t touch on the subject and he isn’t sure whether he’s relieved or disappointed. “It’s been a long three years without you.”

_“Lead the way, Agent Stone.”_

And, as always, Stone does as he’s asked with a smile on his face.


	11. Something to Turn To

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _The testaments they told_   
>  _The moon and its eclipse_   
> 
> 
>     — **Something Just Like This** , Coldplay/The Chainsmokers

“This is a nightmare.”

“I understand, Doctor. But bear with me just a little while longer.”

“How much longer do you _need_?”

“That depends on how cooperative you are.”

“…I’m being extremely accommodating. Remove the IV so that I can use the tube to choke the life out of—” Robotnik wheezes, devolving into a coughing fit. He swats Stone away when the agent tries to ease him back down on the bed. “I’ll rip it off myself!”

Stone sighs.

He knew it would be a difficult time for all of them, cramming four adults, two teenagers, and two dogs into a single house, but it was the only option he had when even his safehouse in the Yukon had been compromised. Cut off from their funding, all assets frozen, and bumped to the top of the America’s Most Wanted list, all Stone could manage was to gather what little he had stashed in clandestine accounts and move them to the last place the government would think of looking for them: Green Hills.

Surprisingly, all Tom had to do was exchange a few short words with Wade and the whole town turned into a militia-esque neighborhood watch, keeping an eye out for any suits that would try to sweet talk their way in.

Tom, who took an extended leave from the force to rebuild his house. All of Green Hills chips in, dozens of hands showing up at a time to give their sheriff the help he needs. Stone occasionally swings by whenever the doctor is dead asleep, considering he knows a thing or two about carpentry.

“You’re getting better,” Stone says, sitting on the edge of the bed and pointedly keeping his hands to himself.

“Don’t patronize me. I was reinventing bone scintigraphs before you were even born. My current lung capacity is at 65% and that is more than enough to keep me functional.”

“But not enough to keep them from relapsing and developing pneumonia again, drastically decreasing your chances of survival. I removed the ventilator, like you asked, because you promised you’d rest until you were ‘fully operational’. Our next option would be a medically induced coma,” Stone threatens.

“You don’t have a medical degree,” Robotnik says petulantly.

“No, but you do, and you know I’m right.”

“I’m not admitting it.”

“You don’t have to. Do you want tea?”

“Of course I want tea.”

Stone switches on the electric kettle on the bedside table, opposite of the medical equipment they were able to borrow from Maddie’s veterinary hospital. He prepares two mugs as he waits for the water to boil.

“Could be worse,” Stone says, back to the doctor. “At least the town knows how to mind their business.”

“We’re not staying.”

“ _You_ don’t have to.” It sounds more forceful than it is, and even when the kettle clicks off, Stone doesn’t move to pour out the water.

Robotnik lets out a long, slow breath through his nose, one that is often a deadly prelude to vicious ranting. “Do what you want,” is all he says.

Stone turns to face him. “Doctor?”

“Mind over matter, Stone. I’m not clueless to you being emotionally compromised where I’m concerned.” Robotnik glares at the wall across from him, his hands twitching over his lap. “I’ve also acted out of impertinent human weakness, against my impeccable judgment. If you want to leave, then leave. You brought me back. _Mission accomplished, soldier._ ”

“Impertinent human weakness,” Stone echoes with a muted laugh. “The same kind that motivated me to get your sorry ass back to our world.”

“You squandered resources to bring me back because you needed me, Agent. No pocket monster would’ve been enough to save this planet, even with unlimited power on its stupid prickly head. Without me—”

“What were the codes?”

“The what?”

“The codes. To operate your machines.” Stone puts his hands on the bedside table, leaning heavily onto it as he stares unseeing at the chrome kettle. “There were a legion of people and none of them could turn them on. You can’t tell me a string of numbers you wrote down in a notebook couldn’t be cracked.”

“You know the codes.”

He does know them, but never once did he have to use them to turn on and pilot the flyer. 

It dawns on him, now, as he turns to the doctor only to catch him staring back with an eerily blank look. “They’re touch activated.” Robotnik snaps his head away, glaring at the wall again. Stone looks down at his own hands, flexing his fingers. “ _I’m_ the code.”

“Your DNA sequence,” Robotnik clarifies. “The intention had been to give you the ability to initiate the lab’s self-destruct protocol were anything to happen to me. A task you pathetically failed at. Instead, I had the agonizing honors of detonating my precious baby.”

Stone shakes his head. “The override password in the Type 2.”

Robotnik groans, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I assumed I could exploit your sentimentality.”

“It was the day we met,” Stone says, his chest suddenly aching.

“Yes, yes, anything else you’d like to question me on? The nature of snails, perhaps?” The doctor brushes his mustache, eyebrows pinched. “I consider myself a practical man. Smarter, not harder. The convenience of having you be my shadow has been scrutinized and optimized for maximum efficiency.” He gestures at the machines around him. “Were it not for you, my odds of survival would have been slimmer than a Surinam toad put through a surface grinder.”

Stone hums thoughtfully, finally moving to pour the boiling water into the mugs. He adds plenty of sugar into Robotnik’s and barely any into his own. 

“Does that mean you’ll listen to me, now?”

“Nope.”

“Because the basement is pretty spacious. We can potentially reinforce the walls and make them impenetrable to just about everything.”

“Have you lost your _mind_?”

“That would put me thirty feet away from you at the maximum, while I whip up dinner.”

“Go on.”

Stone laughs as he walks back to the bed, handing Robotnik his mug and retaking his spot on the edge of the mattress. “Just until we get our bearings. Build a shack for the Shadow out back, get your systems online again, give you some time to fiddle with some new bots without having to worry about the dozens of organizations out to get you.”

Robotnik takes a loud sip of his tea. “You could start a garden,” he says.

“A garden?”

“Your browser history showed a dramatic increase in gardening technique searches.”

“Three years ago,” Stone defends.

Robotnik shrugs. “Three years, blah, blah. What are you into, now? Classic car models? Home brewing?” he says with a mocking southern accent. “Getting drunk with the boys in blue down by the levee?”

Robotnik wears jealousy on his sleeve, much like every other emotion, and Stone feels vaguely guilty for inadvertently pushing a lot of jealousy-inducing facts onto the doctor since his return. They haven’t touched on Robin, despite Robotnik’s reluctant acceptance towards Onyx, but Tom Wachowski is one monster that has the doctor twice as testy as he normally is.

“I’m afraid I’m into talking about my feelings. Facing them head on, that kind of stuff.”

Robotnik calmly puts down his mug, kicks off the covers, and swings his long legs over the edge of the bed. “I’m leaving.”

Stone grins, grabbing the back of the doctor’s shirt and easily pulling him back onto the mattress, careful of the IV. 

The sudden movement disorients Stone, his head throbbing before he can shake it off. He puts his mug down. “You’re not going anywhere until I know you’re not going to keel over—”

“Stone?”

A cold rush has his hairs standing on end as sound grows muffled in his ears. He feels nauseous, sensation leaving his fingers as quickly as hitting a switch.

Stone is barely aware of the hands grabbing his shoulders and forcing him to stay upright, a muffled shout, the sound of footsteps, before it all goes white.

_____________________________

“Are you sure you want to do this, Dr. Robotnik?”

“Mrs. Wachowski, I am under oath to be as ‘nice’ as socially possible given our current circumstances. Let. Me. _Work_.”

“First of all, I’m one thesis review away from a doctorate, so watch your mouth, mister. This here is loaded with 10ml worth of midazolam so cool your jets before I accidentally administer it to the wrong person on purpose.”

Stone bobs between consciousness and unconsciousness, hearing but not seeing, but has it in him to smile. Trust Maddie to take no crap from Robotnik. “Laugh it up, Agent,” the doctor says, applying something to his arm. “This all could have been avoided had you checked in with a medical officer post operation.” His voice moves around the room. “What I had taken to be post-concussion syndrome has worsened to abnormal swelling of the brain.” He coughs.

“So, you were wrong,” Maddie says.

The silence that follows is only interrupted by the beeping of medical equipment. 

Stone can feel Robotnik’s hands on his arms, and he mentally asks him not to let go. 

He can hear the doctor’s labored breathing. He’s agitated.

The light behind Stone’s eyelids turn off.

_____________________________

The first thing any of his senses register is a subtle caress of scents he can’t name.

Opening his eyes reveals a small assortment of flowers lining the windowsill and the desk underneath it. A mixture of red and blue, with some white accents scattered here and there. There are postcards leaning against them, and pictures, and tiny figurines. A pair of leather gloves, and a small egg-shaped drone that beeps the instant Stone groans. 

He watches it whirr up into the air and then dart out the slightly cracked door.

Stone tries to sit up and when that fails, he tries to at least shift his legs. They feel heavy under the covers, as if they haven’t been moved in years. He flexes his fingertips, then his actual fingers, hands, and then his arms. It takes a moment but he’s eventually able to push the blanket down to his waist. When he remembers how to move his head, Stone inspects more the surroundings.

He’s in a room – the room he attempted to nurse Robotnik back to health in– and it’s no longer the bare bones shell of a haphazardly put together medical unit. There are tasteful curtains blocking out most of the sunlight, a floor lamp, and a desk. On the back of the door hangs a garment bag.

The sound of footsteps rushing up the stairs right outside pulls Stone away from the slow intake of information his brain is attempting to process, and all he can do is blink when the door is shoved open to reveal the man Stone adores beyond the capability of crafted words.

Robotnik stands there, one hand on the door and the other on the door frame, as he catches his breath. “Ah,” he says after a moment of ogling, straightening up and running his hands down his coat to smooth out any nonexistent wrinkle. “Took you long enough, Agent Stone. I was beginning to believe I’d need a new assistant. Then again, you were under my expert medical care, so I knew you’d come around. Eventually.”

Stone focuses on breathing as his eyesight swims. Cologne, subtle, mustache wax—mustache wax? Yes. The expensive kind. The kind he usually gets for the doctor. The flowers don’t matter.

He tries to sit up again, but a gloved hand gently pushes against his chest, keeping him down.

Robotnik checks his temperature and reads his vitals, narrating as he goes. “Overall recovery at 82%, given lack of temperature and moderate heart rate. BP levels have stabilized. EEG readings optimal.” He sits at the edge of the bed and fiddles with his wrist device before removing it and setting it down on the bedside table. The doctor crosses his legs and rests his joined hands over his knee, almost expectantly.

Stone can only stare, mouth feeling cottony and tongue thick in his mouth.

“I bet you’re wondering what happened,” Robotnik says with a little bob of his entire body. “The short of it: neglected head trauma exacerbated by copious amounts of mental stress and strenuous physical activity. Good news: never-before-studied ailment—which meant no form of existing treatment until, of course, I created one—so I named it after you. Bad news: I may have overestimated the amount of epinephrine your internal system needed to reboot, thus inhibiting the recovery rate of the majority of your organs. But only by a bit.”

Stone squeezes his eyes shut, not catching half of what the doctor just said.

“You’ve been off life support for two weeks but refused to wake up. I decided to be nice and let you sleep.”

“ _What_ ,” Stone manages to croak, and only then can he focus enough on the man next to him to make sure he’s not being messed with. 

“Good morning,” the doctor says, adjusting the blankets.

Surely enough, Robotnik is _properly groomed_ and Stone immediately deems it hazardous to his recovering health.

The disastrous excuse of a mustache is once more trimmed to the impeccable style that is his trademark, its ends curled neatly with a debonair flair. His hair is short, but he _has_ hair now, neatly combed to the side. But the most obvious change is the absence of his black coat. He wears a similar one—in fact, Stone would almost debate it’s the same exact cut and style—only with an inverted color scheme: all red, for the exception of the hint of black at the cuff, where it blends into the leather of his gloves. Two tiny yellow buttons decorate the right side of the collar, and there’s a design to them, but Stone can’t quite make it out. The goggles on his head tells Stone he was up to something.

Robotnik looks devastatingly handsome and Stone’s heart skips a beat faster.

He wonders just how many drugs are plowing through him still. “Morning.”

“I expect you to make a full recovery, Stone. You’ll be back in my service in no time.”

“Good to know.”

Robotnik’s jittery energy momentarily gives way to a chilly wave that ices his eyes over. “Let that be the last time you _ever_ neglect your pitiful well-being,” the doctor warns, voice pitched low. “I had to waste precious—not to mention _extremely limited_ —resources on keeping you alive because, apparently, you had some sort of death wish.”

“Sorry.”

The doctor eases off, pinching his jaw as he works it with a crack. “The human body is a machine in its own weak and deficient way. All it takes is one misfire of a faulty line of code and the entire system corrupts.” He straightens up and sucks in a breath, almost dreamily, as he stares at the wall. “You function like a well-oiled machine, Stone; an eerily perfect operating system trapped within inadequate hardware.”

He isn’t sure whether to be flattered or insulted. “I think my hardware is adequate.”

“By human standards.”

“How long was I out for?”

Robotnik looks at him. _Actually_ looks at him, rather than falling back towards the safety of fleeting glances. “Three weeks.”

“That’s a long time.”

“It was the right amount of time. There were no broken bones, but I did come across a few fractures that are now mostly healed, but I suggest taking it easy for a couple of more weeks. There were bruises aplenty.”

“When can I get up?”

“Whenever your legs can hold you up. I’m not carrying you.”

Stone huffs a small laugh, moving his head around to take in the quaint décor of the room. He looks at the flowers again, at the pictures of Sonic, Tails, and both dogs in a pile somewhere nondescript. He smiles and reaches up to scratch his cheek, only to pause in utter mortification.

“You might need a shave,” Robotnik says. “And a haircut.” 

He goes to stand up but Stone is quick to reach for him, grabbing his hand and holding fast. “Wait,” he says, then swallows, his too-dry throat aching. 

Stone doesn’t know why he asks him to, having nothing to say and body feeling like its just waking up from a three-week coma, but he pushes his fingertips past Robotnik’s cuffs, resting just above the edge of his gloves. Skin on warm skin. Thumb caressing smooth wrist.

Robotnik stares at the point of contact, mouth twitching. 

He gives Stone the time he needs to meet his touch quota before pulling away from him. “I hope you’re ready for your meet and greet,” he says, matter-of-factly, as if Stone hadn’t just wordlessly begged him to stay. “Your groupies can’t wait to shower you with their _love_ and _attention_.”

“Groupies?”

“As promised,” Robotnik says, finally standing up and brushing off his coat, “everyone is still alive and sane. More or less.” The doctor makes for the door with a heavy stride before whipping around with a wide stance, his coat flowing with him. “If you need me, I’ll be in the basement. There’s a phone by your pillow.” 

And with that, he disappears into the hallway and down the stairs.

_____________________________

A sea of familiar voices drift quietly through the house as Stone sits on the couch, feet under him, a PB & J sandwich in hand, and an Onyx resting his head on his lap in wait for anything to drip from it. Swallowing is uncomfortable, but at least bread goes easier than any real food being passed around the living room.

It’s surreal, to say the least.

The Wachowskis get him up to speed after an hour of continuous welcome backs that quickly devolved into jabs about being in a literal coma for three weeks. _‘True love’s first kiss work for ya?’_ , and _‘Working for Eggman must suck but you can’t just sleep your responsibilities away, Spy Guy. I’ve tried.’_ being some of his favorites.

The rebuilding of their house is almost complete as they move on to installing the last of the appliances, along with the fine-tuning of the new security and tech-connection software that surprises Stone.

“Yeah, we’re the guinea pigs,” Tom says. “But don’t worry, Tails is double checking everything as he goes, making sure there’s nothing funky afoot.”

Tails, who seems to have been relegated to the role of ambassador where Robotnik was concerned. Stone was simultaneously amazed and not when Maddie handed Tails a takeout container for the basement. Out of everyone present, Tails would be the only one the doctor would even deem worthy of his attention since he’s technically not human and is yet to publicly make a fool of him.

And speaking of non-human teenagers.

Sonic makes the occasional snippy remark about Tails having a new best friend. He’s only half joking, and Stone doesn’t have the energy to stop him as he flips into a full-fledged rant of the events that transpired in Oregon what seems like a lifetime ago.

“We let you two do the easy work,” he says, pacing the middle of the room as he animatedly reenacts the explosions, the non-existent fighting, and the reckless driving. “I mean, I totally didn’t see any of it. That stupid tripod knocked me out cold. Who knew anti-EMPs could kick my butt? I really hope the government doesn’t get a load of that. Hey, you think Eggman could delete that info off their computers? Anyways, we all reconvened at the top of the crater and watched the fireworks show. All I’m saying, you’re not just a knock-off Keanu. You’re also a knock-off Will Smith in Independence Day. _Now, that’s what I call a close encounter_.”

Maddie swoops Sonic up and plants him next to her, patting him on the back. “Nice line delivery,” she says.

“Thanks! I have a whole Hollywood’s worth if you want to hear.”

“Maybe some other time.”

“Aw.”

Stone can’t help the smile that tugs at his lips. He feels weak and fatigued, like he could sleep for another week if he had the chance, but there’s a heavy weight of comfort resting over him as he sits amidst people he’s less hesitant to call friends, and knowing the doctor is somewhere in the house with them. 

It’s peaceful, borderline unreal, and he wonders if he’s somehow still under.

“Thanks,” Stone says. It’s the most he can offer.

Tom puts his arm around Maddie’s shoulder where they sit on the floor, tucking her into his side as he holds his beer up in a toast. “You’re practically part of the family, so.”

“You can’t just keep adopting strays.”

“ _Sonic!_ ” the Wachowskis say in unison.

“What? It’s true.”

Stone takes a bite out of his sandwich and doesn’t speak, his chest aching at the thought of being considered part of anything that doesn’t require an extensive resume of elite service. Being able to sit down with a homemade sandwich, in sweats, socks, and a t-shirt, with no pretenses or memorized information to regurgitate—maybe retirement wouldn’t be so bad. 

Considering he miscalculated Robotnik’s involvement with Green Hills, the option of staying in the house on 7th and Main seems less and less like an impossibility.

It doesn’t take long for them to take their leave, with Tom shooing Sonic out of the house while Tails gives Stone a well-deserved fist bump. He holds up a bright yellow phone for Stone to see, flashing the stylized R on the back cover. “My number’s on your phone,” Tails says. “I tweaked my OS a bit, but Eggman made sure the lines were secure for us to use.”

“Don’t go sending me funny internet links at two in the morning.”

“Okay, first of all, they’re called _memes_. Second, it helps to put your phone on silent past nine. Believe me.”

Stone wonders who would be calling Tails past nine in the evening on a secure line and is boggled by the mere idea of the doctor calling anyone for anything. But he has been alone for five months, only to come back and have his assistant be out cold for weeks. Stone wouldn’t blame Robotnik if he did turn to Tails to talk his furry ear off over something or another.

“See you tomorrow, Spy Guy.”

Maddie is the last to leave, standing by the door as she leans down to scratch the back of Onyx’s ear. “You take care of him, okay?” she tells the dog. “I’ll swing by tomorrow for your playdate.” Turning to Stone, “I’ve been taking him to doggie daycare. Getting those wiggles out of him.”

“He’s pretty excitable for an old man.”

“Guess you have a type,” she says slyly. 

“Funny,” Stone says, deadpan.

“There’s leftovers and some frozen pizza in the fridge. You also have some stuff in the pantry, in case you want to eat something that’s not a granola bar and instant coffee. I honestly don’t know how that man does it.”

“He’s pretty useless without me.”

Maddie grins. “Careful. I think he bugged the house.” Despite this, she shrugs. “I’m not entirely sure, but I want to say he was _moping_.”

The phone in Stone’s pocket vibrates, and a glance at it reveals a single message across the screen: _SHE’S LYING_.

“I’m sure he was,” Stone says. The phone goes off again, but he shoves it back in his pocket without looking at the screen. “Thanks again, Maddie. I’m sure you single handedly kept him from blowing anything up.”

“Had to put the fear of God in him once or twice, but he otherwise behaved.” She opens the front door and steps out onto the porch. “Looks like this place sunk its claws in whether you liked it or not,” and with that, she lets the door close with a silent click.

Stone finishes his sandwich and just sits there, gathering his thoughts and his wits, replaying the sequence of events that has led him here. It all feels dreamlike, much more so than it did when he first learned that Sonic was not of this world years ago.

Standing up unsteadily, Stone hits the lights as he goes. He makes a stop at the kitchen and prepares a cup of coffee, some generic brand he finds in the pantry but knows the doctor will drink anyway.

By the time he reaches the top of the basement stairs, he can feel vibrations under his fingers. It isn’t until he’s at the door that he can vaguely hear the low thrum of music coming from the other side. Stone doesn’t knock, opening the door and coming to a dead stop as he takes in the remodeled basement.

“Agent Stone,” Robotnik greets, getting up from his chair and removing his goggles. “Well, what do you think?” He gestures grandly at the area, nearly glowing as he moves around to poke and prod at the machines lining the walls.

“Wow,” is all Stone can really say. He can’t begin to fathom how Robotnik managed it, but the basement has been turned into an exact replica of his mobile lab. Far bigger, and not as many robots resting on the walls, but given more time Stone is sure he’ll ramp up production to the point of not having enough space. The Shadow flyer is parked at the back, and Stone wonders just how the hell something that big was able to be placed there.

Stone is pulled away from his gawking when Robotnik plucks the coffee from his hand and takes a sip. He grimaces at the taste but drinks it anyway. “Rome is much quicker to build when you already have the blueprints,” he says, tapping at his temple. “I’ll build an even _bigger_ empire of impeccable machines, Stone. Faster. Stronger. Smarter. And _THEN_ , oh, and then, I pity the poor bastard who thinks they can take anything else from me. How are you feeling, by the way? You look lively.”

“I,” Stone starts, the whiplash of Robotnik’s moods throwing him from a loop. It’s been so long he’ll likely have to retrain himself all over again. He’s okay with that. “I’m feeling pretty good.”

“Excellent. I knew you would.”

“Doctor, this is amazing.”

“Of course, it is. I designed it.”

Stone moves around the lab, taking in the swaths of white and red and black, the sharp aesthetics that are so inherently Robotnik. There’s a workbench separate from the console center, something the space allows for and Stone is sure the doctor appreciates. Tucked around a corner is a small locker and an equally small kitchenette with its own coffee maker and a mini fridge. All Stone finds is creamer and a half empty box of granola bars.

He pauses mid exploration when he picks up on the song playing through the speakers, and it takes him a moment to remember whether it’s one he mentioned during the doctor’s absence. Stone turns towards Robotnik who is back at the workbench, furiously fiddling away at a tiny drone with a screwdriver, humming to himself.

The song changes, and yes, Stone is sure of it. “Coldplay,” he says, testing his theory.

Robotnik makes a sound similar to a cat being disturbed from their nap. “I took the liberty of synthesizing your voice messages and removing all the unnecessary words, narrowing twenty hours down into a two-minute recording and throwing your song recommendations into a single playlist.”

Stone feels cold horror explode at the base of his skull. “Voice messages?”

Robotnik holds up his old wrist device without turning around, waving it for Stone to see before chucking it into the trash bin under the console. He goes back to working on his bot. “Relay was delayed due to the temporal displacement. They all decided to come in at once when I returned to Earth.”

“I apologize,” Stone says, and it’s weak yet true, given the colossal amounts of things he’s sorry for.

“You should. The amount of swears alone was enough to make my nanny blush.”

“I was angry.”

“Naturally,” the doctor says as he sits back on his swivel chair and lays his palms flat on the table. “You said a lot of things.”

“I did.”

“Most of which I attribute to drunken decompressing.”

“Yes, of course.”

Robotnik turns the chair towards Stone. “Saturday, May 31st, 2019. 11:57pm. You asked at what time I would be coming home, and then laughed.” Stone doesn’t remember that, but in all honesty, he hardly recalls any of the messages. He left a lot of them. “I had been AWOL for two years.”

“I was being sarcastic,” Stone says, boggled by the fact that he would even have to explain something like this. “I was angry because you were just gone, and I was—I was lonely.” He swallows, hard, rubbing at his wrist as he stands in the middle of the lab, feeling so many emotions at once he can barely stay on his feet. “I was _lonely_ , and I _missed_ you.” Stone sucks in a shaky breath. “I missed you so fucking much I didn’t know what to do with myself. Every day I woke up thinking ‘maybe today’s the day he realizes he needs me’, if only just to make you a damn cup of coffee. I chased bombs, terrorists, classified weapons—all in hopes that you would be there to brush me off and call me something degrading just for the sake of acknowledging me.”

Stone is certain that’s the most he’s ever said while sober, especially in Robotnik’s presence, and he bites back the swelling wave of embarrassment that begs him to turn tail and run. Without his suit, he has no defenses. Without his gun, he’s unarmed. He’s as vulnerable as he’s ever let himself be since his childhood days, serving the little segment of living, breathing flesh inside of him to Robotnik on a silver platter.

He could lie. He could very easily weave a web of excuses that could get him out of this situation. Robotnik would know, but the doctor would more than willingly turn a blind eye to this sort of exchange if it means returning to how things were before.

“ _Right._ Now that that’s off your chest—”

But Stone won’t. “I hated you.”

The miniature drone in Robotnik’s hands snaps cleanly in half, but the doctor goes right back to installing a board into the damaged machine.

“The least I could do was side with the enemy, even if it meant to bring you back.”

“They’ve taken a liking to you.”

“Yeah, I’m pretty likeable when I get to act like I’m human. Who would’ve thought?”

Robotnik finally puts down his project and swivels over to the console, bringing up a holoscreen and navigating through his playlist to replay the Coldplay song that just finished. He sets it on repeat. “Who in their right mind would keep an assistant they loathe?”

“You.”

“ _Wrong._ Two assistants a month, give or take a military bootlicker who thought themselves strong-willed enough to handle me.” Standing up from his chair, Robotnik adjusts his gloves, making sure they’re taut over his hands. “I like to test a person’s mettle, especially when they think they’re worthy enough to get close, to be in my bubble.” He stops inches away from Stone, looking him dead on with a flat look in his eyes. “There is a reason why I allow you to stand _at my back_ , Abel. _You._ With one hundred and seventy-two successful assassination attempts under your little designer belt. With a shiny MA in electrical engineering that you refuse to put to good use because you much prefer the weight of a gun in your hands.”

“Doctor…”

“You’re the best of the best, Agent Stone. A tier above all the rest and I would have no one but you by my side. Not even a literal stone.”

Stone stares at him, minutely nodding his head before sucking in an unsteady breath.

“Are we done here?”

Stone wants to say no. He wants to grab the man and shake his shoulders, demand more of that rare window of openness he just witnessed in hopes of finally reaching a conclusive answer. 

Years ago, when asked what about the doctor made him tick, Stone had answered that it was simply an extension of his loyalty. Now, he’s not so sure. When faced with his past, his demons, and the stormy yet predictable going-ons of day to day life, Stone can finally admit to himself, in the quietest voice possible as to not disturb the doctor, that maybe, his loyalty was only the beginning.

Robotnik returns to the console, drone forgotten when two dozen or so red dots on a holoscreen come alive with beeps of varying styles. Wallet-sized images of individuals pop up along the left side of the screen, all which Stone recognizes and wishes he didn’t; none of them are military or government. A green frame around each signifies their living status, and their location markers place a good majority of them in the US and neighboring territories.

Midway up the column on the left is one Robin Tok, very much alive and well.

“What are your plans,” Stone says, standing at attention just behind Robotnik’s right shoulder, hands securely at his front as he curiously inspects the screen. “Doctor?”

“That all depends, Agent Stone. It has been brought to my attention that a previous associate of mine has been making foolhardy threats regarding my strongest of assets. The audacity. _The chutzpah_. I’ll show them!”

Stone watches fondly as Robotnik furiously taps away at multiple screens at once, swiping through them, categorizing, running diagnostics, brain running at a thousand frames per second as he deviously plots away their next course of action.

The agent rests a hand on the doctor’s shoulder, and Robotnik eases into the touch the slightest bit.

Sometimes a job is more than just a job. 

But only sometimes.


	12. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _I was just an only child of the universe_   
>  _And then I found you_   
> 
> 
>     — **The Last of the Real Ones** , Fall Out Boy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here we are.

“Is this really necessary?”

“Don’t question me, Stone.”

“I know how to dress myself.”

“Gee, thanks for the clarification. Given your sudden inclination to wearing nothing but sweatpants, I was beginning to think there was an unaccounted-for side effect to your medication. Now, stop moving.”

Stone tries, but Robotnik continues to manhandle him with far more aggression than is warranted. Thankfully, he had enough time to put on real pants before the doctor assaulted him with the garment bag that has been hanging on Stone’s bedroom door for months.

“Once upon a time your suits may have been adequate, but now that we’re—dare I say it—a _team_ , you’re going to have to up your presentation.” Robotnik turns Stone around to face him, fastening small pins to the coat’s collar. “First impressions are _everything_. Can’t afford to be seen looking anything short of stellar when we finally enact my perfectly crafted plan for revenge.”

Stone stares at him with a smile as tender as he feels while the doctor works, reaching inside the coat to adjust the shoulder holders. He tugs and then lets them go, making them slap against the soft fabric of the agent’s shirt. Stone suddenly finds it very hard to swallow.

He’s spun around again, Robotnik squeezing him by the shoulders while grinning into the full-body mirror in front of them.

“Et voila!” he says, taking a step back to allow Stone to look himself over.

Honestly, Stone has never been a person to be too hung up on clothing, choosing comfort and practicality over looks since he first learned how to dress. His standard issue suits came from the agency that officially hired him as Robotnik’s assistant. Sure, he had a couple of spares saved for special occasions, but those also weren’t chosen by him. Standing in front of the mirror, however, Stone can see the appeal. It’s not that he looks good—which he does, even he can admit that—but there’s something about the styling choice that is so inherently Robotnik that it makes his body glow warm under the expensive fabric.

The black slim fitted pants subtly bring out the charcoal color of the band collar shirt, which in turn accents the black shoulder holsters Robotnik spent the better part of a week working on. Imitation leather nanofabric, he had called it. Designed for automatic self-adjustment, enhanced movement, and less chafing. It presses intimately closer to him than the average holster would, which he guesses is the whole point.

Then there’s the coat.

Stone refrains from uttering the comment he thought of the moment he first saw it, allowing Robotnik to rant away as he slid it up Stone’s arms and adjusted it properly along his shoulders. 

The differences from this coat to the doctor’s old one is minute, falling casually around Stone’s bulkier frame down to his knees. The inside is lined entirely in red silk, matching the red pins on the black collar and the red soles of the new Italian leather shoes. Inside the coat collar is a tiny yellow chip that matches the two buttons below the collar of his shirt.

Part of him assumed Robotnik would want him looking more like a henchman rather than someone of equal standing, but there are some things that don’t need to be mentioned aloud. Not between them. Stone accepts that this is just the doctor’s way of thanking him, even if it took colossal amounts of effort to keep Stone from giving up throughout the process.

“I like it,” Stone says, turning sideways to get a better look at himself. Long coats are hardly practical in the field, but he’ll let the doctor have his moment. “We match.”

“I look better. But! There is one more thing.” Robotnik reaches into his own coat and pulls out a pair of gloves, handing them over to Stone with an intense twist on the corner of his mouth. “Same material as your holster. Enhanced to absorb recoil.”

Stone rubs his thumb along their smooth surface before tugging them on. 

They’re fingerless, snug on his palms, with a small array of buttons and sensors not unlike Robotnik’s more complex ones. He flexes his fingers and it feels as if he were wearing nothing, yet the warmth against the skin of his hands sends a little shiver racing through him.

“Thank you, Doctor,” he says quietly, looking down at his hands with a smile.

Robotnik reaches to tweak the pins on Stone’s collar. It’s the same insignia as the one emblazoned on the bottom of his shoes: a cartoonish rendition of what Stone assumes to be the doctor upon his return to Earth. Nowhere near as sophisticated as his stylized Rs, but it’s a clear indication of the number the exile did on him. Of his own evolution. 

Regardless, Stone thinks it’s charming in its silliness. 

Robotnik now has a _brand_.

“You look presentable,” Robotnik says, brushing him off before turning towards the mirror himself to make sure everything about him is in its proper place. He curls his mustache and daintily fixes his hair. “Let’s get this over with so that we can finally get the hell out of this place. Odds are you’ll find it hard to say—”

“I can tell you what’s hard,” Stone says abruptly, stepping into Robotnik’s space again and looking up at him as he adjusts the buttons of his coat. He lingers for a moment, but the quizzically impatient look on Robotnik’s face has him shaking his head with a laugh. “Forget I ever said that. That was awful.”

The doctor raises a coy eyebrow, a playful little smirk tugging on the corner of his mouth. “We don’t have all day, Agent,” he says as he brushes a gloved knuckle under Stone’s chin.

Robotnik pulls away with a flourish, breezing out the bedroom door and into the hallway with his red coattails dramatically billowing behind him.

Stone takes a moment, hand over his chest as he instant-replays those last ten seconds like a favorite movie reel. 

From baby steps to bounding leaps.

He takes a side-step and does a little shuffle, making sure his coat does its best job at fanning out behind him as he turns out of the room with a spring in his step.

__________________________

It’s an alarmingly warm afternoon for late October, with brightly colored leaves lining sidewalks and lawns and piling on top of cars parked alongside the road. Jack-o-lanterns, skeletons, and foam headstones decorate the quaint houses of Green Hills, already bare trees wrapped in cotton spiderwebs and plastic arachnids. School is out for the day, but the Wachowskis live far enough out of the way to avoid the clutter of kids enjoying the weather before the predicted blizzard begins to roll in.

Stone jogs up the new wooden steps and leaves his keys on the windowsill. He walks backwards, taking in the house he helped build with a sense of accomplishment. Duty calls, and he knew their time in Green Hills was borrowed. With a final tap of his knuckles against the railing, the agent turns on his heels and heads back to the black Dodge Charger he’s come to call his own during the past couple of months. 

Robotnik leans against the passenger side, his goggles traded in for a sensible pair of sunglasses. “Lack of sentimentality. Should I be worried?”

“I don’t want to bother them any more than I already have.”

The porch door swings open and Stone immediately glares at the doctor, who in turn smirks devilishly at him.

“I see how it is,” Tom says, loud enough for everyone walking down the street to hear. “Thinking you can just hit the road without checking in with the sheriff. You’re a wanted man, you know. The two of you.”

Robotnik doesn’t move from his spot, facing away from Tom and putting on his best standoffish posture.

Stone’s shoulders fall, his carefully timed plan dashed to bits courtesy of the scientist whose hands are suspiciously out of sight and is currently enjoying his assistant’s discomfort. “Tom,” he says. 

They shake hands, and Tom pulls him in for a half hug, patting Stone’s back before stepping away and side eyeing Robotnik with an easy smirk. “We’re gonna miss ya’, Spy Guy. Best dog walker this side of Montana.”

“Among other things,” Robotnik remarks, openly frowning at Tom.

“I’d ask where you’re off to, but the less we know and all that jazz.”

Stone nods his head in agreement. “We’ll stay in contact. I’m sure Tails will keep the rest of you posted if anything comes up.”

“Anything such as…?”

“Usual stuff.”

“Alright, that, uh, that’s pretty broad considering this place.”

“It’s all in your capable hands, Sheriff.”

The door opens again, and the rest of their unlikely group comes piling out.

Sonic spin dashes at Stone, but the agent doesn’t flinch when he jumps up to his feet with his hand up for a high-five. Stone doesn’t leave him hanging. “It’s been real, Spy Guy. Nice threads, by the way.” Stone runs his hands down the new coat with a sheepish grin.

Tails is holding up Onyx, the latest addition to the Wachowski family for the time being, as he comes down the steps. The dog spills out of his arms despite his efforts, and Maddie swoops in to save the day. She holds the corgi under her arm and pats Tails’ head, gently guiding him towards the sidewalk.

“Promise me you’ll make sure his stuff gets peer reviewed,” Tails says, only half joking, “before he accidentally blows up this planet.”

“Nothing I do is ever accidental,” Robotnik snaps, pushing off the car but getting as far as Stone is, who slides to stand between the doctor and the Wachowskis.

“The doctor is in perfect control of all of his experiments, I assure you. Nothing can ever go wrong. Ever.”

Robotnik aggressively removes his sunglasses to glare at Stone. “Make a friend or five and suddenly you think you’re funny.” 

Stone nudges him back with his shoulder, before kneeling to Tail’s level and holding out a hand. “Thanks for all your help, little guy. No way we would have gotten him back without you.” 

Tails shakes his hand while shyly scratching at his cheek. “Don’t mention it, Agent Stone. You were just as vital to this mission as all of us were.”

“Hey! I was well on my way to—”

“Dr. Robotnik!” Tom interrupts, pushing past Stone to stand in front of the doctor. He hooks his thumb on his belt and gives him a nod, adjusting the badge of his shirt. “You show your face around these parts again, you best be sure you’ve got that man with you,” he says, gesturing towards Stone.

“Tom,” Stone warns, straightening up and extending a hand to diffuse any possible altercation that might result from this.

“Stand back, Stone,” Robotnik says, holding up his hands to stop the agent from coming any closer. He closes the distance between him and Tom, squinting while switching his attention from the badge, to Tom’s face. “I can handle this. I’m sure this exemplary officer of the law means no ill intent.”

Tom straightens further with a serious look on his face while Robotnik towers over him. For the longest three seconds of Stone’s life, while everyone present holds their breath, he thinks he will physically have to restrain someone at a moment’s notice. 

Instead, to his immediate suspicion, Robotnik holds out his hand.

Neither of them looks away from each other’s face as Tom takes it and gives it a shake, before letting it go. Neither backs away. Tom makes a nonchalant gesture where he gestures with his chin and purses his lips. “You better get Agent Stone a raise, Rob.”

Robotnik smiles, and Stone knows that smile all too well. It’s a curve that says someone is about to get knocked down a couple of notches, the smug smile freely given before a difficult individual is sent crashing through a glass window at a rowdy bar.

“No need to worry, Tim. I pay exceptionally well, and I tend to give more than a 100% _tip_ , if you get what I mean. Do you tip your—”

“And that is enough of that,” Stone interrupts, loudly, putting an awkward hand on Robotnik’s shoulder. “There are children here,” he adds between gritted teeth. “We should get going before the sun starts to set.”

“Oh, before you do,” Tom says, as if he still didn’t have Robotnik dangerously close to him. He pulls out his wallet from his back pocket and produces a small piece of pink paper. “Wade wanted you to have this. It’s his number. It came with a Hershey’s Kiss, but I ate it before it melted. He _really_ took a liking to you, even after all that.”

Before Stone can grab the piece of paper, not entirely certain Tom is telling the truth, Robotnik swoops in and plucks it from Tom’s hand, crumpling it for all to see and tossing it over his shoulder with an utterly deadpan expression.

Tom winks at Stone, who rolls his eyes in reply.

With one last round of goodbyes said and done, Stone turns to unlock the car, but Robotnik’s hand at the middle of his back keeps him from moving away. “Doctor?”

“Are you sure you’re ready to leave this place behind, Stone? The crisp mountain air, the bubbling laughter of the locals, the simplicity of it all? Hick cops with a _thing_ for you?”

Stone narrows his eyes at him. “We agreed to move forward with your plan.”

“Yes, yes, I know we did. But are you _absolutely_ certain?” Robotnik’s hand crawls up to rest above the agent’s shoulder, his leather-clad thumb pressing pleasantly to the back of his exposed neck. “It’s a nice lab equipped with all the creature comforts. Fully automated, and you already have the ‘access codes’.” The doctor sucks in a big breath and loudly lets it out, using his hold to guide Stone towards the car. “You grew fond of that bedroom, with all its little trinkets and cheap sheets. It sure would be a shame to—”

Robotnik is fast, but Stone is undoubtedly faster.

Amidst the breeze loosening leaves from the trees, the undoubted change of the season knocking briskly at their doors, it’s easy to forget that some things are far more reluctant to change—

— _especially_ as the doctor spins and lunges headfirst, hands ready to grab the little blue hedgehog who, faster still, makes a run for it. Stone grabs him by the back of his red coat as the Wachowski’s whip around, equal looks of alarm on their faces.

And honestly? Stone wouldn’t have it any other way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to thank everyone who has stuck around for the ride! You've all been so wonderful and encouraging and deserve the world. <3

**Author's Note:**

> come say hi on twitter @ **[astramaxima](https://twitter.com/astramaxima)!**


End file.
